Claybreakers sweep first event of the season
On Saturday, March 7, the Lassen Grizzly Claybreakers traveled down to Coon Creek Trap Club in Lincoln, California for the first competition of the season.
They were met with rain, wind and more rain, but this didn’t stop the Grizzlies from posting some great scores and winning the varsity and JV divisions.
For the varsity, it was Jacob Daniels starting off with 100 straight, and that tied for first place with a shooter from another team, calling for a 25 target shootoff.
Daniels lost 24 to 25, putting him in second place for the varsity. Then, Rylan Pickens shot a 97, followed by Caleb Montgomery with a 96, Keegan Divine with a 95 and Daniel Jones shot a 94.
Varsity Team Captain Hunter Smith, Kendahl Loflin and Alexis Pickens all shot 93 targets, followed by first year varsity member Kat Baldwin who shot 92, along with Dillon Ross.
Wyatt Gould shot a 91, and Austin Stephenson, Bailey Spalding, Will Pickens, Rylee McCart, Chase Roby, Aidan Adams, Morgan Rausch and Dharma Jones filled out the varsity roster which posted a high five team score of 482 out of 500, beating second place Sutter by 10 points.
For the JV team, their top score was JV team captain Aidan Divine’s 92 that landed him fifth place on the podium, followed by Kaden Dunten’s 90, Amanda Fox with an 86, Zak Schall 86, Graeson Glover 83, Tucker Owens 82, Jorden Mahenski 81, Cole Russell 76, Griffin Scarpa 71; and James Allen and Brayden Langslet filled out the JV roster and gave them a shootoff of 437 out of 500, enough to beat Durham High School by two targets, and smoked third place Sutter by a whopping 26 targets!
Head coach Phil Giusti commented, “What a great start to the 2020 season, I knew our varsity was strong this year, even though it is a very young varsity team with four coming in with three year’s experience, three with two years and 12 first year varsity members, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way they performed down there.”
Giusti continued, “A couple of our top shooters had an off day, but we had 11 90-plus scores, and that was enough to bulldoze our competition by 10 points. As for our small, 11 man JV team, they came out with guns blazing, and didn’t stop. Our team captain Aidan Divine landed on the podium at his first shoot competition ever, with 10 team members backing him up.”
Giusti concluded, “Our JV team this year is made up almost entirely of beginner shooters, but you wouldn’t know it by the way they performed and came together as a team. I could not have been more proud of them, and I expect them just to get better and better as the season progresses.”
