Owatonna clay target team closes season

The high school sports season literally ended with a bang–many bangs–as the Minnesota State High School League clay target tournament closed out its 2022-23 prep season Friday.

Owatonna senior Taylor Busho ended her high school career shooting in the inaugural girls’ division championships and taking sixth place. It was her second time at state after being part of the Huskies’ 2021 qualifying team. This was the third tournament appearance for OHS.

Busho got started with a gun on the farm shooting cans off a fence and saw her average skyrocket from her first year to leading the team with a 23.9/25 average this season. She believes she was in the mid-teens her first year in eighth grade.

“Practicing almost every single week, coming out here to practice hard rights, hard lefts, the fundamentals,” she said, adding that staying focused and minimizing distractions is a key component to success.

She will participate in a national event in Michigan this summer and shoot at Simpson College (Iowa) next season.

“They travel around a lot. So, I get to go to other states. And they go to nationals,” she said.

Busho will also shoot sporting and skeet in college.

Senior Dawson Risser had the second highest team average at 23.6.

“I like to come out on the weekends as much as possible…I make time for it. I also have a thrower at my mom’s house that I can practice too,” he said.

He was looking for a spring sport in seventh grade and joined trap shooting in its first year in Owatonna. Risser also played football.

Teamwork in clay target “means a lot of focus, mental focus, making sure you get those clays that you need to get your average up and the team average up and place well in the conference.” The Huskies were second in their regular-season conference.

Senior Teagun Ahrens is a longtime hunter, especially for pheasants, and says trap helps him sharpen his skills. He enjoys the team aspect as well.

“It’s really just a good team environment. There’s a lot of kids on the team. We have the biggest team in the state actually,” he said. “It’s really nice to come out here once a week and get together with all my friends that are on the team.”

Ahrens led the team in the state qualifier in Alexandria, shooting 99-out-of-100.

Head coach Mike Kingland is happy with how the team interacts and says it is not surprising to see a group of students all from different grades sitting on a tailgate together waiting their turn to shoot. He points out that those students might not even know each other if it weren’t for trap.

Ahrens is happy to see the overall improvement.

“The new shooters, everyone has gotten so much better with all the practice we’ve been putting in,” he said.  

OHS graduates seven of their top ten shooters. Junior Mac Mogen will be a captain next season and appreciates this year’s group.

“They showed really good leadership. They always focused on making the younger kids better. And they’re just super nice and humble,” he said.

The team had 36 athletes new to the team and a long list of assistant coaches, even a few that are former Huskies’ shooters