4-H State Modified Trap Competition

The Winners.

4-H Shotgun – OC’s 4-H shotgun team went to the Rock Eagle experiment station Saturday and won first place in the senior division, second place in the junior division and Ben Giles won seventh place in the senior division for individual honors. 

Coach Roger Grimes and Haley Lamey after shooting a perfect 25.

        For the last 18 years the experiment station has held the 4-H state modified trap competition.  This year 989 shooters descended on this small part of Putnam County.  Just like last year there were 13 stations to accommodate everyone plus one doubles station to decided ties.  When a shooter shoots a perfect 25 they go to the doubles station to shoot five pair of clay birds thrown at the same time.  Even on a good day this takes exceptional marksmanship so not many shooters pull off a perfect 10. 

Dusting a bird.

        OC’s shotgun team shared station five with Worth and Meriwether counties.   Meriwether County is east of Lagrange and home of Warm Springs.  Worth County is sandwiched between Albany (All-benny, for the uninitiated) and Tifton.  In the past, Worth would have put up three shooters, then OC would put up three shooters and Meriwether would follow suit. 

A hit.

The coaches got together and decided to let all of one county’s shooters for a particular division shoot and so on until everyone was done.  This worked out much better mainly because a team didn’t have to go looking for people to make sure they were at the station on time, and team’s intensity and drive could stay focused for everyone rather than three shooters here and three shooters there. 

OC’s junior division started the show with outstanding scores.  Logan Grimes, Carson Anthony, Colton Evans, Cade Massey, Dalton Ogle, Cullen Massey and Christopher Smith scored the following: 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 19 and 23; practically unheard of for a junior team made up of middle schoolers.  A team’s score consists of the top five individual scores, which, in OC’s case, was five 24’s for a total of 120.  Unfortunately, none of these guys made it to the individual competition.  At the state meet a score of 24 is just not going to hold up.  Somebody is going to shoot a perfect 25. 

See the shot?

Nevertheless, OC’s junior team’s score held for the day to capture second place overall, just one point off the top score of 121.  By any measure this is outstanding.

OC’s senior team came up to the line later on in the morning for their turn.  Chance Fowler started off with a score of 23, which is a respectable score.  Bryce Massey, who won the junior division individual title last year with a perfect 25 and a perfect 10 at the doubles line, was up next.  Massey continued his winning ways with 25 broken targets.  Ben Giles, who was third in line and whose best score so far in the season was 24 shot all 25 birds for the first time.  Somebody had sprinkled pixie dust on OC.

The tie breaker - doubles.

Haley Lamey was fourth, and, like Giles, hadn’t shot 25 either.  But she came through like a real trooper shooting all the targets thrown for OC’s third perfect score.  Hunter Boring and Kelly Huff shot a decent 21 and 23 respectively to help OC’s cause.  Then Alex Long, who is new to the shotgun team but not new to shooting, dusted all 25 targets giving OC four shooters with perfect scores.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  It not only put OC in first place overall it put tons of pressure on other teams to try and best OC’s score. 

OC had two senior teams in competition, OC’s second senior team, consisting of D.J. Taylor, Haley Throne, Hannah Murphy, Shelly Evans and Zach Funk shot a team score that put them in fifth place overall.  Unfortunately their score didn’t hold up through the afternoon and they got bumped from the top ten. 

Bryce Massey and Coach Randy Gabriel at the doubles station.



It was an impressive sight to see four shooters, along with the coaches and family members, all from the same team, headed to the doubles station.  It had to be intimidating to the other teams to witness.  The doubles station is where ties are broken.  This year it was a tough go; only one person shot all ten, four shot nine and five broke eight.  For OC, Giles was in the group the broke eight. 

At the end of the meet, there was a five way shoot-out for seventh through tenth place for individual honors.  The original shooters that broke eight of the ten doubles were the contestants.  When Giles’ turn came, he broke nine of ten and this score held to place him in seventh place overall. 

The forgotten.

The OC 4-H shotgun team is coached by Randy Gabriel, Brett Fowler, Dwayne Massey and Roger Grimes.  OC’s continuing success at both the region and state meets is directly attributable to the dedication, hard work, knowledge and skill of these gentlemen.  Year in and year out there may be better teams, but there are no better coached teams. 

The best.

One caveat, under 4-H rules the members of the senior team that won first place honors are considered master shooters and cannot compete as a team again.  They can compete for individual honors, but not for team honors.  That is, their score won’t count for team scores. 

This year, however, Oglethorpe’s 4-H shotgun team is on top of the world, and rightly so. 

You can see all the pictures here:  http://hdgp.photoreflect.com/store/thumbpage.aspx?e=8515139