Clay Target State Tournament to be held Friday, June 24, 2022
Posted: Thursday, June 23, 2022 - 2:16 PM
Clay Target, the final event of the Minnesota State High School League’s calendar of events for the 2021-2022 school year, is Friday, June 24 at the Minneapolis Gun Club in Prior Lake. The state tournament, held since 2015, features the top 40 qualifying teams, and this season, will showcase the top 93 individual participants that qualified.
The Team Competition begins at 9 a.m. with an award ceremony scheduled for approximately 12:15 p.m. Red Wing is the defending state champion and will shoot in the final team flight at 10:30 a.m. There will be a new champion in the individual competition.
A complete list of participating teams and individuals and their shooting schedules are listed below.
In 2014, the Minnesota State High School League was the first state association in the nation to sponsor Clay Target as an activity. In its first season with the League, there were 185 teams with more than 6,100 participants. This spring, there were 337 member schools that fielded teams and 11,227 participants.
“Clay Target competition has opened up another avenue of activity for both boys and girls to take part in,” said Jim Weinzierl, an administrative region secretary in northwestern Minnesota. “It’s probably the fastest-growing activity in our schools. Clay Target teams unify students who are already in other school activities, as well as students that may not be a part of any other activity that a school offers.”
CLAY TARGET: HOW DOES IT WORK?
- At each trapshooting station, five shooters line up in a semicircle, ensuring safety and physically-distanced protocols.
- From a launching station 16 yards away, the targets are released.
- At the command of “pull” a clay target highlighted in fluorescent orange sails in the air speeds over 40 mph at randomly-selected trajectories.
- A state tournament format consists of participants shooting at 100 targets in each of the team and individual competitions.
- Scoring is tallied by how many targets are broken or chipped. If only dust comes off the target, it is considered a miss.
- There is a range safety supervisor at each field.
- There is a scorekeeper to record hits and misses.
