News

By Ryan Schlehuber 

MCC sportswriter 

SIDNEY — Perhaps there is a little more rust than expected for the Montcalm Community College Centurions clay target team, but it didn’t prevent it from improving in the standings this past week. 

Despite a cold round of shooting during Week No. 2 of regular season in the USA College Clay Target League, the Centurions moved up from third place to first in the overall Class 1A, Conference 1 fall skeet standings and have retained the first-place position in the Class 1A, Conference 2 fall trap overall standings. 

“We didn’t shoot as well as we did last week,” admitted Centurions head coach Chris Henry. “But it seems the other teams in the conference were down more than us.” 

MCC is currently leading the conference in trap with a 242 score. Ferris State University is second at 231.50 and Concordia College of Moorhead (Minn.) is third at 225.50. 

In skeet, the Centurions’ total is 244, ahead of Illinois College (Ill.), which has a 211 score, and Saint Johns University (Minn.), which is at 177. 

Sophomore Jack McBride (Portland, Mich.) once again led MCC shooters, shooting a 49 in trap (hitting a perfect 25 in the second round) and totaling 47 in skeet, which teammate Chase Merritt (Greenville, Mich.) tied him in that category. 

Freshmen Liam Jensen (Carson City, Mich.) and Collin Sutton (Levering, Mich.) each earned a perfect score in the first round of trap shooting and totaled 47 and 48, respectively. Sutton, however, struggled in skeet, as did the other freshman shooters. 

“I felt good about my scores compared to last week,” Sutton said. “My skeet scores were a little lower than last week, so I did feel like there’s room for improvement. But, overall, I thought (Week 2 shooting) was pretty good.” 

Sutton said one thing he is trying to improve is not overthinking his shots. 

“When I’m up on the line shooting, I overthink a lot,” he said. “When I overthink, I get very nervous and when that happens, my scores get affected by that.” 

Henry is looking for Sutton to improve this Friday, when Week No. 3 conference shooting will be held, which, for MCC, is at the Flat River Conservation Club in Greenville. 

“Collin’s been pretty consistent in trap, but obviously he needs to pick it up in skeet,” Henry said. “He just has to focus on both rounds together.” 

Going into the third week of competition, Henry believes his team is due for some perfect scores this week, stating he definitely wants to see more 25s going on up on the board. 

“I definitely am expecting them to improve on last week’s performance,” he said. “We should shoot well.” 

MCC’S WEEK 2 TRAP SCORE RESULTS 

NAME RD1 RD2 TOTAL 

Jack McBride 24 25 49 

Collin Sutton 25 23 48 

Liam Jensen 25 22 47 

Hunter Doolittle 23 23 46 

Logen Steffen 23 21 44 

Chase Merritt 19 21 40 

MCC’S WEEK 2 SKEET SCORE RESULTS 

NAME RD1 RD2 TOTAL 

Jack McBride 23 24 47 

Chase Merritt 23 24 47 

Logen Steffen 23 22 45 

Liam Jensen 23 20 43 

Hunter Doolittle 22 19 41 

Collin Sutton 18 18 36