Sporting Clays

Growing up in the country I was always around family and friends who loved hunting.  When my daughter married a man, Nick, who also loved hunting, it wasn’t anything new or unusual to me.  When he passed along his love of hunting and sportsmanship to my grandson, Owen, I wasn’t surprised.  Owen has proven to be a very good marksman for a 10-year-old, and when his dad discovered that there was a youth sporting clays club about an hour from their home, it didn’t take long for Owen to become a member of the Hunting Hills Hawkeyes.  For those of you not familiar with sporting clays, it is a target game designed to simulate field shooting. The shooters set out on a course and are presented with a wide variety of targets that duplicate the flight path of game birds.  Courses are laid out in natural surroundings and will usually include five or 10 shooting stations.  The shooters move from one station to the other as they complete the course.  Owen’s season begins in the spring and ends in early fall, with practices and shoots every weekend.  The state championship for Pennsylvania is held in June, and we were so proud that in 2013, during his rookie season, Owen’s rookie team of three placed second in the state.  At that point, we were all hooked and this grammy became a sporting clays groupie.
Two-thousand-fourteen also proved to be another successful season for Owen, who again placed second in the state in sporting clays and was the state champion for skeet for his age group.  We were beyond thrilled when he was asked to compete in the national championship in Illinois in July.  With a lot of support from friends, family and his community of Rogersville, Penn., Owen, his mom (my daughter, Ashley) and myself set off for a road trip to the World Shooting and Recreational Complex in Sparta, Ill.  As we drove up the long driveway to the complex, which was lined with each state’s name emblazoned on a flag, it felt like we were arriving at the Olympics of sporting clays.  The facility is very impressive with several shooting ranges, vendors, stores, a campground, a restaurant and more. Several college representatives were also on hand hoping to recruit the next members of their respective teams.

Owen had a restless night that night, but the next day his team of three showed a lot of composure for 10 year olds and finished the day very well sitting infifth place.  We were hopeful that they would place, however, day two and a case of the nerves got the best of them.  By the end of the day our little rookie team of 10-year-olds from southwestern Pennsylvania finishedeighth in the nation out of 16 teams—still not too shabby.

Owen recently kicked off his first competition of 2015 at Nemacolin. Even though they live in Pennsylvania, I keep reminding his mom and dad that West Virginia University is only 20 minutes from their house—and WVU is the NCAA Rifle Team Champion.  With hard work and dedication to his sport, I think I just might see him on that team one day.