Silver Bay Clay Busters Finish 2nd in Conference and send one to State Tournament

Coach Ben Goutermont, Coach AL Klotzbach, Cooper Goutermont, Stella LaPointe, Morgan Meeks, Jordan Klemmer, Bryce Meeks, Layla Popp, Kale Hackensmith, Pipa Beckstrand, Berkley Hoff, Grady Hoff, Odin Hansen, Archer Goutermont, Coach Faron Meeks.

Trap Shooting has been one of the fastest growing high school sports in Minnesota. Under the watchful eye of coaches, school athletes use either a 12 gauge or 20 gauge shotgun, with 5 shoot­ers at a time taking turns from their desig­nated shooting station, aim to bust the clay tar­get launched from the trap house. Once each has taken their shot, they will then rotate to the next station and take their turn again. This process repeats until all shooters have taken 25 shots. One point is earned for ev­ery target hit.

One of the greatest assets of being part of the trap team is that everyone gets to par­ticipate. Whether it’s in conference compe­tition, an Invitation­al Meet, or the Clay Target Championship in Alexandria, MN – there are no bench warmers, no second or third string. Everyone is equal and a team participant.

When it comes to shooting on the high school trap team, con­ferences aren’t deter­mined by geographi­cal location but by team size and school size. Along with Silver Bay, this year’s confer­ence was made up of the following schools: Groves Academy, Mar­shall School of Duluth, Lourdes High School, Northome High School, Washburn High School, Hen­ricks High School, and Russel-Tyler-Ruthton High School.

Although the Silver Bay Clay Busters had no seniors on the team this year, they had many high scoring shots. There were twelve straights (25 out of 25) and multiple 24’s accu­mulated by the team.

On June 21st, 8th grader Archer Gouter­mont of Silver Bay will be traveling to the Minneapolis Gun Club to compete in the Minnesota State High School League State Tournament for Clay Target. A member of the Silver Bay Clay Busters, Archer has been shooting with the team for two years.

The 2024 Silver Bay Clay Busters team had 12 shooters – Cooper Goutermont, Stel­la LaPointe, Morgan Meeks, Jordan Klem­mer, Bryce Meeks, Layla Popp, Kale Hackensmith, Pipa Beckstrand, Berkley Hoff, Grady Hoff, Odin Hansen, and Ar­cher Goutermont. The team earned second place in their confer­ence, with a few shoot­ers placing high indi­vidually. Archer won first place (male), Kale tied for third (male), Stella won second (fe­male), and Layla placed third (female).

Besides placing first for male shooter, Archer also finished in 55th place out of 11,266 shooters in Minnesota. As a tier 1 ranked athlete, Archer will be attending the national tournament in Mason, Michigan in July.

Archer’s favorite part of clay target is “the actual shooting”. He also enjoys shoot­ing for fun with his brother, Cooper, and his dad, Ben. He says the most difficult part of the sport is “get­ting the right amount of lead and being told I can’t shoot any more rounds.” His favorite memory is shooting his first 25, a perfect score. Next goal? Shooting 50 straight. When Ar­cher isn’t shooting, he enjoys fishing, hunt­ing, and riding snow­mobiles and 4-wheel­ers.

Best wishes to Ar­cher as he competes at the state and national tournaments!