BRIGHTON, Colo. — In just its third year, the Brighton High School trap and skeet shooting team is the largest in the state. With more than 60 student-athletes, they are second only to the football team on campus.
Trap and skeet shooting has a lot to offer. For one thing, it's diverse.
"Shooting shotgun is the great equalizer," said Jennifer Minor, who is the team's coach in addition to being Brighton High School's vice principal. "You don't have to be big, you don't have to be small, you don't have to be strong, you don't have to be fast. It is a very mentally challenging sport."
It's also safe. Not a single injury has been reported in the Clay Shooting League since its inception.
"We have every kid do a safety test that's about nine hours long, and it's self-paced and you have to score a 90 on it," said program founder Nathan Duran. "And then we make you come out here and do a safety test where we visually get to see you do it. And then if you don't do it correctly, we'll make you redo it."
The safety aspect appeals to school salutatorian Owen Woodford, who was forced to retire from soccer due to injuries.
"I played soccer and I got five concussions over that timespan and I haven't gotten anything here. So it's incredibly safe."
So what is trap and skeet shooting?
"So trap is five shooters standing at five different stations. They take five shots from each station after they take their five shots, they rotate, and their goal is to hit a target or what we call a clay pigeon," said Minor. "That is a 4-inch orange target coming out of the trap house at 44 miles an hour. Now, those targets actually oscillate back and forth. So we don't really know which direction that that bird is going to come out of the house but the students shoot two rounds of 25 and their goal is to get perfect 50s every weekend."
Trap and skeet shooting is not CHSAA-sanctioned, so all of the team's money comes from their 37 sponsors. That's more than the football team, and the program is only in its third year.
"You know it was definitely an odd start not knowing how it would be received as a team so you know it was kind of a quiet first meeting to now we're the second largest team in the school," said Rainier Niday, class valedictorian and trap shooter.
And here, the girls rule, racking up all of the individual state medals, with two of them becoming the first-ever trap scholarship recipients like Leah Vanosdoll and Taylor Madsen.
"It's really cool, I just learned how to shoot trap my sophomore year. And it's really cool to be able to get a scholarship for it," said Vanosdoll.
Madsen is a founding member of the program. She's happy with the legacy she's leaving behind.
"We're competing for state championships," she said. "We're competing at the national level. We're already coming together and being able to take my career farther is just incredible. And I can't wait to see what that holds for our future."
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