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Bailee Bortz places in Top 5 at state trapshooting meet

Press photo by John Burbridge Bailee Bortz places in Top 5 at state trapshooting meet
Press photo by John Burbridge
Bailee Bortz places in Top 5 at state trapshooting meet

 

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CEDAR FALLS — The line of fire at the State/Scholastic Clay Target Program Tournament held annually at the Cedar Falls Gun Club nearly disappears over the horizon.

The club has 30 trap houses, most of which spat out clays simultaneously during the five-day event.

“But with so many teams, you’re only down there to shoot one of those days,” said Kevin Tierney, assistant coach for the Charles City/Nashua-Plainfield trapshooting team.

For the combined squad of Comet and Husky shooters, Sunday was their day to shoot. Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t have been worse for CC/N-P head coach Tim Laube who, as a fireman and first-responder, couldn’t make the tournament due to being occupied on Sunday in helping the region recover from Saturday’s damaging storms.

As for the CC/NP shooters … they did some damage to the clays, especially 2018 Charles City graduate Bailee Bortz.

After hitting 195 out of 200 clays, Bortz found herself in a four-way shoot-off for a chance at second place in the Senior Varsity Ladies division.

Bortz eventually placed fifth earning her a place on the Top 6 medal stand.

Kinsey Bruggemeyer of Mount Pleasant was the Senior Varsity Ladies champion after just missing one clay out of 200.

With Bortz, Carter West — who placed 24th in the Senior Varsity Men division after hitting 194 out of 200 clays, Jace Landt (192), Colby Gavitt (191) and Evan Schmidtke (177), Charles City 1 placed 13th in the Senior Varsity division with a team score of 946.

In the Senior division that compiles top scores from all the participants from a school, Charles City placed eighth with Nick Ritzman’s 191 included in the scores of Bortz, West, Landt and Gavitt to add up to 963.

North Scott won both the Senior Varsity and Senior divisions.

Lane Leerhoff hit 191 out of 200 clays to pace all Nashua-Plainfield shooters.

The State/SCTP meet closed the high school season for the CC/N-P. For the past few years, the schools sent a contingent of shooters for the SCTP Nationals in Ohio.

“But we don’t have plans to go this year,” Tierney said, “so this was it for us.”

Tierney thought that overall the squad did well at the meet, and should have plenty of talent coming back next season.

“We’re only going to lose six and we should have 18 coming back,” Tierney said, “and we’ll probably find some more.”

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