CC/N-P trapshooting team set to reload

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — There are some nicknames that you just can’t outgrow.

Take the one that labels Jacob Greenzweig, otherwise known as “Shorty”.

“That was the nickname given to my grandfather,” Greenzweig said. “They say that I remind them of him, so they passed it on to me.”

Greenzweig admits that he used to be short (like most people), though now he’s nearly six-foot tall and at an age where he’s likely still growing.

Greenzweig has also grown as a trapshooter, and has just finished a breakout season with the Charles City/Nashua-Plainfield high school trapshooting team.

“I didn’t get my first 50 until last year (at nationals),” Greenzweig said of his first perfect round. “Until that time, I had never scored a 25 in a half round. So after I got my first 25 ever, I just kept it going for my second.

“I didn’t let my nerves get to me.”

This past season Greenzweig recorded four perfect “50” rounds — two in consecutive meets. His perfect-shooting streak was broken when he had to forgo an invitational hosted at CC/N-P’s home site — the Nashua Fish and Game Club — to attend his siblings’ graduation at Iowa State University. The invite would have been an opportunity to score three-straight 50s in one week.

Yet “Shorty” gives much of the credit to his family when it comes to getting him and keeping him on target.

“My brother (Grant) is the one who really got me started in shooting,” Greenzweig said. “It was mainly him and my dad (Galen) who have helped me improve since my freshman year. And my other high school coaches have helped a lot, too.”

High school trapshooters often experience a gamut of conditions during a single season. They’re subject to shoot in bone-chilling wind, driving rain, snow and sleet showers, and oppressive heat of the like that baked the Scholastic Clay Target Program state meet in Cedar Falls last month.

“I try not to let the weather affect me,” said Greenzweig when asked about his favorite and non-favorite conditions. “There’s nothing I can do about it … whether it’s windy or cold or hot. You just make adjustments when needed.”

At the SCTP Nationals held July 12-16 in Marengo, Ohio, Greenzweig was part of a five-shooter CC/N-P contingent consisting of seniors Luke Hillegas, Sydney North and Hunter Koebrick; and fellow junior Rebecca Tierney.

Competing amid 117 teams and more than 1,800 shooters, CC/N-P placed 30th in the High School Division and 41st in the SCTP Division while collectively hitting 935 out of 1,000 clays.

“I’m happy with the way we shot being that it was our first time being down there,” CC/N-P coach Tim Laube of the expanded national site in Marengo, moved from Sparta, Ill.

“Shooting between 93 and 94 percent is good,” Laube said, “but I was hoping to get around 95.”

Hillegas led the way hitting 192 out of 200 clays. Koebrick shot 188; Greenzweig, North and Tierney each shot 185.

One of the smaller groups at nationals with the minimum amount of shooters for team scoring purposes, CC/N-P was without one of its top shooters — Izzy Worrall — who dropped out of nationals several weeks ago.

“She needed to take time off to get ready for college,” Laube said.

Hillegas, Koebrick, North and Worrall have all since graduated from high school.

“We lost a lot, but we got several juniors (i.e. Greenzweig and Tierney) coming back as well as other underclassmen who have continued to improve for us,” Laube said. “I’m looking forward to next season.”

As for the past season, Charles City/Nashua-Plainfield managed to attain 18 top-three squad placings in the 22 meets it competed in. The girl shooters earned 33 individual medals and the boy shooters earned 17.

“It was one of our better teams,” said Galen Greenzweig, who is one of CC/N-P assistant coaches. “Next year’s team should be one of our better teams, too.

“As for the best team we’ve ever had … it may be our 2013 team,” Galen said of when Grant was a senior on the team. “That’s the team we look up to when we want to measure ourselves.”