Newton Trap Team opens season Sunday

Trying to grow the sport of trap shooting is one of the goals of the Newton Trap Team, a spring club sport for high school boys and girls from Newton. For the second year in a row, numbers are up for the Cardinals with 18 returning shooters and 12 new members.

Under the direction of head coach Paul Klein, who begins his sixth year as head coach and seventh year with the team, and assistant coaches Joel Provin, Lynn Gifford and Donny Hobbs, the Newton Trap Team competes mainly in trap shoots. It does have several sporting clays shoots and skeet shoots on the 2017 season.

The team opens the spring season Sunday in a sports clays shoot at Maxwell. Newton has been practicing since March 4. It goes to its first trap shoot on April 8 at Marshalltown.

“So far I’ve seen some good scores from most of our returning team members and I’m hopeful that they continue to shoot well and scores improve as we get into our competition season,” Klein said. “The new team members are off to a good start and will continue to improve as the season progresses.”

Returners to the trap team are seniors Brian Bleakney, Dawson Cobler, Evan Cook, Colton Kingery, Nathan Tremmel, Clay Trotter and Logan Zaabel, juniors Ross Hull, Mallory Iske, Adam Maharry and Laura Townsend.

Also back are sophomores Joshua Adkison, Brooke Gifford, Devon Hobbs, Nathan Miller, Dallas Schaeffer, Allison Ulrey and Devon Young.

Newcomers are juniors Tristan Langmaid and Kalob Westercamp and freshmen Jarrett Antle, Ryan Brown, Blase Byrd, Dylan Farver, Landon Gearhart, Blake Iske, Daniel Townsend, Brodee Vest, Trenton Winchell and Malarie Zach.

Eight shooters who competed in the 2016 state trap championship meet are back — Cobler, Trotter, Cook, Hull, Zaabel, Tremmell, Kingery and Bleakney. Newton had teams finish 82nd and 96th. Cobler and Zaabel competed for Newton at the state sporting clays meet as Newton’s three-man team was 16th.

Cobler shot a perfect round, hitting 25-of-25 clay pigeon targets at the Jasper County Gun Club in a meet held on Newton’s home range hosted by Ankeny. Ulrey is the team’s top returning female shooter. She competed in the junior varsity ranks a year ago.

First-year shooters are classified as junior varsity. Shooters are required to have competed in at least four trap league events to qualify to go to the state trap competition. Trap team members are required to have completed a hunter safety course.

“We didn’t have our best season last year. Several of our team members struggled to get the scores that I know they are capable of shooting,” Klein said. “I’m hoping we can correct that this season.”

Teams compete with a five-man squad, which can be made up of boys and girls. Klein said students competing in the sport of clay target shooting still have to meet academic requirements to be eligible. At meets, awards are usually presented to the top three squads and individual awards to the top three male and top three female shooters in the meet.

Newton’s high school trap team is not a sanctioned sport by the two state activities associations in Iowa. The team is funded by donations, fundraising activities and by the athletes themselves.

Klein pointed out that each student pays for their own ammunition. The club provides clay pigeons to shoot during practices.

Newton’s team was established in 2007 with three student athletes competing. Since then, the Newton Trap Club has allowed NHS students with interest in competitive trap shooting to compete in the Iowa High School Clay target Association (IHSCTA) and the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP).

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535
or jsheets@newtondailynews.com