Newly formed Gateway Skeet Club earns trophy at 1st state competition

The Gateway Skeet Club came home from state competition with a second-place team trophy — not too shabby considering it was the team’s first trip to the tournament after forming this year.

“I think we were all surprised,” said team member Christian Sterner, 16, who will be a junior this coming school year. “We knew we were doing pretty well, but in our regular season, we finished seventh. So we were very happy with it.”

The team attended the Pennsylvania Skeet Shooting State Tournament, organized by the Pennsylvania High School Clay Target League and hosted by the Shenecoy Sportsmen Club in Huntington.

“The sun was the biggest challenge,” Sterner said. “It was early in the morning, we were on top of a mountain and as soon as the sun came up, it was right in your face.”

In addition to the team trophy, incoming sophomore Bryce Snyder earned a first-place finish in the individual novice shooter competition.

“I didn’t think at all that I was going to win first place,” said Snyder. “I’ve shot rifles before this while hunting, but I had never shot in any competition whatsoever until we started the team this year.”

The individual competition was two rounds of shooting at two sets of clays, and Snyder said it took him a little time to get used to the shooting field. which was set up a little differently than the team’s training site at the Trafford Sportsmen’s Club in North Huntingdon.

“It seemed a little smaller than our home range, and I didn’t have some of the same type of landmarks in the distance,” he said.

Out of a top score of 25 per set, Snyder scored 21 and 15 in both rounds, hitting 72 of 100 possible clays to earn the first-place trophy.

Sterner said the team enjoyed the whole experience.

“I think getting to hang out with the team was great, and up on the mountain top, the view was really cool,” he said.

Other local schools also brought home hardware from the tournament, including:

• Ethan Wills of Greater Latrobe took first place in the high gun, junior varsity (male) category with a score of 84.

• Nathan Miller of Connellsville took third place in the high gun, junior varsity (male) category with a score of 73.

• Summer Pavlik of Greater Latrobe took first place in the high gun, junior varsity (female) category with a score of 89.

• Connellsville’s Charles Kenney (97), Benjamin Horne (96) and Wyatt Corman (96) swept first, second and third place in the high gun, varsity (male) category.

• Connellsville’s Kenney took the top spot in the overall high gun category with his score of 97.

• Connellsville came out on top of Gateway to take the top spot in the overall team category.