Arlington High School Trappers Take a Shot at the 2006 National Championship

Youth baseball has the Little League World Series. Youth trapshooting has the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) National Championships. The Arlington High School Trap Shooting Club was there representing Shelby County.  According to Bill Dunn of the National Sports Shooting Foundation (NSSF) more than 1,600 youth trap shooters from 26 states converged on the new $50 million, 1,500-acre World Shooting and Recreational Complex in Sparta, Ill., August 8th and 9th for the SCTP nationals. The two-day team competition, held in conjunction with the world's largest shooting competition―the 107-year-old Grand American Grand American World Trapshooting Championships―crowned national champions from five states in SCTP's five divisions. The competition was the largest in SCTP's six-year history.

"It's amazing to see what these young athletes can do when challenged on a national stage," said Zach Snow of the NSSF, national coordinator of SCTP. "A remarkable 304 shooters broke 190 targets or more out of 200. That's one in five shooters at this competition, and to do be able to do that at such a young age, and at a national competition, is astounding."

With four top-three teams, Tennessee had the competition's highest medal count, claiming the national championship in the rookie division and placing third in the rookie, junior novice and senior novice divisions.  Arlington High School Trappers Senior Novice first squad scored a 940 of 1000 targets, just seven off of first place to tie for third with Shelbyville Central High School, also from Tennessee.  Since both teams were absent for the deciding shoot-off, third place was awarded to Shelbyville Central through a coin toss, officially placing Arlington in fourth.  The Arlington first squad is made up of Matthew Holt, Matthew Eley, Andrew Reed, Curtis Robinson, and William (Matt) Segerson.  Alternate Matt Lollar busted 188 targets out of 200.

Impressively, Arlington’s second squad also saw a top ten finish, scoring 933 to place ninth.   Shooting on the second squad are Brandon Barker, Cody Cochran, Keaton Irving, Taylor Garrison and Johnny Newman.  Alternate Eric Bence shot 178.  The AHS squads enjoyed the highest scores in their team’s history at the Grand, dramatically improving their Tennessee State Competition scores of 924 and 871 respectively.  Several on the team shot exceptionally well; Johnny Newman busted 75 in a row, Taylor Garrison and Johnny Newman broke straight 50’s and ten of the twelve team members hit straight 25’s over the two days’ competition.  Matt Holt snagged the high score of the team with a 195.  The first year team is coached by Kurt Simons who echoed the sentiments of many who followed the team’s progress, “No one expected us to make it to state, let alone for us to compete so well at the national level…I couldn’t be more proud of these boys.”