Eagles have 10 first year shooters on trap team

After a two-year hiatus, the New York Mills trap team is up and running again.

The team started off with a bang, literally, on Monday, April 5. The Eagles will have two practice weeks and then five competition weeks where they will be shooting against other teams in their conference. Conferences will be announced on April 12.  

NY Mills will have 43 registered shooters on its team. The Eagles will have 32 males and 11 female athletes that are split pretty good among the grade levels, nine seniors, eight juniors, 10 sophmores, seven freshman, seven in eighth grade and two in seventh grade.   

Monday’s weather was beautiful. The first group up at 4:45 p.m. was team number one on trap number one in 2021 and it was an all female team. Megan Riedel turned out to be the high gun for their group, shooting a pair of 23’s for a total of 46 out of 50 targets.

Team number two on trap number also had a great round.  Both Braxton Saewert and  Levi Roberts managed to crack all 25 targets in their first round and earned a 25 straight patch.   Roberts was running them again in his second round, but missed his 36th target and ended up with a 49 out of 50 targets. Great shooting. 

Then NY Mills’ 5:15 p.m. group shot and Sawyer Wedde was on fire. He came out and hit all 25 targets in both his rounds for a 50 straight right off the bat and received his first 50 straight patch. Now that’s the way to start off the season.

The NY Mills trap team has several sibling shooters this year and, of course, the younger ones are striving to beat their older brothers or sisters. Head coach Tom Kotarski said it’s fun to see the competition between not only the siblings, but the males and the females and younger shooters vs. the older shooters. He said they’re all out to be the top gun of the team.   They’re not separated by age, if they can shoot, they’re on same line with whomever signed up for that time, no matter what their age. Kotarski said the smile on a younger team mate’s face when they get off the line after outshooting their older competition is priceless.

A first year team member is full of nerves and you can see it on their faces, but after a couple rounds of shooting they’re more relaxed and fit right in and it’s smooth sailing after those first few rounds.

The Eagles have 10 first year team members on their team this year including: Caitilyn Reitmeyer, Xander Wedde, Austin Geiser, Elijah Menze, Henry Irons, Henry Oakes, Izak Schermerhorn, Monte Briard, Colson Keskitalo and Braxton Ehnert. Kotarski said from what he has seen so far they’re doing awesome and will be an integral part of the team.