Champions crowned at MSHSL Clay Target State Tournament

The 2020-2021 school year of activities concluded Friday, June 25 with the Minnesota State High School League’s Clay Target State Tournament held at the Minneapolis Gun Club in Prior Lake. It was an exciting finish to the League’s calendar of events.

In the team race, Red Wing edged two other schools that staged a late rally, and in the individual competition, there were co-champions. It was the first time that there was more than one champion in the individual competition since 2018 when five participants were crowned champions.

Here is a look at what happened during a full day of competition that closed out the school year:

Individual

South St. Paul’s Boone Johnson and Becker’s Bradley Bible topped the 92-shooter field with perfect scores of 100. Bible, ranked seventh entering the state tournament, shot the 100 targets early in the competition and sat atop the leaderboard for quite some time. But as the competition continued, there was shifting in places in the top eight spots, including Johnson joining Bible in the top position.

The top eight finishers in the individual competition are selected to the Fleet Farm Top Gun All-State Team and were recognized during an award ceremony afterward. Johnson and Bible were among five shooters that had perfect scores during the state meet. During the team portion, Owatonna’s Ezra Buck, Mabel-Canton’s Colton Heintz-Kuderer and Foley’s Elias Kobienia each had scores of 100.

It is just the second time since the tournament began in 2014 that the individual championship has been shared.

Randolph’s Cory Timm was third with a score of 99 and a reverse-run of 76 and Mabel-Canton’s Colton Heintz-Kuderer was fourth (99, reverse run of 14). With scores of 98, Albert Lea’s Cole Estes was fifth with a reverse-run of 74, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg’s Hunter Wilts was sixth with a reverse-run of 60 and Foley’s Hunter Olson was seventh with a reverse-run of 51. Annandale’s Jake Mader rounded out the top with a 98 and a reverse-run of 37.

Team

The team competition stretched longer than expected, an occurrence that merely created more drama because of the tight chase for the state championship. Red Wing sat atop the team leaderboard for a couple of hours, but had to wait with anxiousness as Tri-City United and Alden-Conger made serious late runs. In the end, two targets separated first from third place.

Red Wing, making its second state tournament appearance, claimed the championship with a score of 484 out of a possible 500 targets. Tri-City United was one target back at 483 and Alden-Conger was third with a 482. All three schools were seeking their first Clay Target state championship.

Prior Lake finished fourth with a score of 480, and New Prague, the 2019 champion and runner-up in 2018, was fifth with 479.

Scoring for Red Wing in the team competition were: William Ahren (98 score out of 100), Samuel DeLain (97), Isaac Kosek (97), Jacob Quade (95) and Chloe Struss (97).

Tri-City United, a co-op of Montgomery, Lonsdale and LeCenter, was making its fourth consecutive state tournament appearance dating to 2017. Scoring for the Titans were: Preston Anderson (94) Bryce Blaschko (97), Lukas Dietz (98), Jonathan Hurd (95) and Wyley Petersen (99). Alden-Conger, a perennial state tournament qualifier since 2016, had scoring from: Mike Huper (95), Ross Huper (98), Dylan Kohler (98), Ali-Jean Petersen (94) and Caleb Songstad (97).

There were 40 member schools that qualified for the team event.