On a hot and windy Saturday in the sand country of Central Wisconsin, the Boscobel Bird Dogs won their second state youth trapshooting championship in three years. The challenging conditions didn’t stop the Boscobel shooters from besting the 1,500 students from 65 Wisconsin high schools that participated in the Wisconsin State High School Clay Target League’s 2017 spring trap shooting season.
The Conference 10 Champion Bird Dogs arrived at the Wisconsin Trapshooting Association shooting complex near Nekoosa at 7 a.m., with the temperature at a cool 70 degrees. However, the comfort didn’t last long. After the Bird Dogs’ own Brenna Kvigne sang the National Anthem, shooters from 57 qualifying Wisconsin schools, including Boscobel, began their competition at 9 a.m. The temperature was already around 90 degrees, soon to reach 95+. The winds were out of the southwest at 12-16 mph, with gusts topping 25 mph.
Over 800 qualifying students competed at the state competition, enduring gusts and dust for over seven hours.
“When the smoke, or maybe I should say dust cleared, the Boscobel Bird Dogs were the first place team, 2017 Wisconsin State Tournament Champions,” said coach Greg Plotz. “Kudos to all the competitors! That was something to shoot in those types of conditions.”
Boscobel won first place with 464 points, just ahead of Denmark with 461.
“It was a tight one on a challenging day,” Plotz said. “We won the whole thing by just three birds.”
Individual award winners for Boscobel included Carter Brown, who won third place high gun varsity male by shooting 96 out of 100 birds. Hannah Kraft won third place high gun junior varsity female.
The Bird Dogs proved strong all season long and boasted eight members of the 2017 All-State Team, including Drew Brown, Carter’s brother, who won second place, high average conference male for the spring season with a 24.1 average. He shot 94 out of 100 on Saturday, as did teammate Levi Wetter. Zach Karsten bested his season average by shooting 91 out of 100.
Other Boscobel members of the All-State Team included Wetter (23.4), Josh Mayne (22.7), Karsten (22.1), Noah Wagner (21.6), Trevor Hackl (21.5), Isaac Sutherland (21.5) and Gage Updike (21.5).
“Congratulations Bird Dogs on a job well done and a great season,” added Coach Plotz.
