After shooting 250 shots, senior Owen Kalma and junior John Duld both only missed one shot the entire fall season, crowning them both state champions of the Kansas State High School Clay Target League in their respective categories since they had the highest averages.

In clay target shooting, there are three main disciplines: trap shooting, skeet shooting and sporting clays. Since the school does not have a clay target shooting team, Kalma and Duld won their state championships as members of the St. James Academy team. Kalma was the champion of trap shooting while Duld was the champion of skeet shooting.

Although it was not the first sport Kalma played, he has found that it is the one for him.

“I’m good at it, so it’s fun. I played baseball and basketball, and I started shooting trap with my grandpa and my dad just for fun,” Kalma said. “Then once I became good at it, I was better at trap shooting than any of the other sports I played, so I just stuck with it instead.”

Similarly, Duld was also introduced to clay target shooting by his grandfather.

“About six years ago, my grandfather drove me out to the gun range and started just handing me a gun, saying, ‘Here you go’ and I’ve been shooting ever since then,” Duld said.

Last year, Kalma fell just short of winning the state championship. This made winning it this year even better.

“Winning was pretty awesome,” Kalma said. “The year before, I got second because I lost the tiebreaker, so getting first this year was pretty awesome.”

According to Kalma, the sport is more individual based than team based.

“It’s similar to track in a way,” Kalma said. “It’s like an individual sport. Your scores are more important than your team scores. So you’re competing individually, but with people to try and help boost your scores.”

Kalma is preparing to compete with 1800 other shooters in the USA High School Clay Target League National Championship held in Mason, Michigan in July. In order to qualify, shooters must have above a 19 out of 25 average per box. Shooters who have higher averages get the opportunity to sign up early until all spots are taken.

“I’m excited and I’ve got to nationals the last two or three years, and I’ve placed,” Kalma said. “I placed, but I didn’t play very well the first time. Last time, I placed top 100.”

Although Duld is also preparing for a national competition, he will be competing in the Scholastic Clay Target Program National Championships in Ohio rather than the high school league like Kalma. Both Kalma and Duld plan to continue clay target shooting in college and the future.

“I love [clay target shooting] cause it’s a lot of fun,” Duld said. “The environment’s fun, the people are fun and everything is just a lot of fun.”