CC/NP/RRMR Trap Shooting team hosts ‘Friday Night Lights’ meet

By John Burbridge 

sports@charlescitypress.com 

NASHUA — A perfect day for a trap shooting meet tends to be imperfect. 

Condition varieties include blustery, blizzardly, rain drenched, ice hardened … sometimes even roiling hot as they usually are during the state tournament weekend after Memorial Day. 

Only lightning and maybe a funnel cloud sighting or two checks the fire as trap shooters — like the hunters many of them are — don’t let weather cancel the outdoors. 

During a week of early April at its most bone-chilling, the Friday Night Lights Trap Shooting Meet hosted by the Charles City/Nashua-Plainfield/Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock trap shooting team scheduled for April 11 after any warmth from the sun has been extinguished promised to test the thickness of the skin and the insulation under it of the participants and spectators. 

As it turned out, Friday Night Lights was shot during a perfect night in the literal sense — little breeze on a seasonable warm night, and the surrounding star constellation in full display looming over an orb of man-made light that enveloped the Nashua Fish and Game Club. 

The Friday Night Lights was the third-annual evening meet hosted by CC/NP/RRMR at the club, which has recently upgraded its facilities to host such events. 

The visiting New Hampton Trap Shooting team managed to maintain ownership of the traveling trophy for the third-straight year after its NH Red squad consisting of Jackson Kellogg (47 out of 50 targets), Wyatt Schwickerath (45), Nolan Swehla (45), Chase Humpal (43) and Emmett Kuehner (42) placed first with a 222 team total. 

NH Black, consisting of Benson Burke (45), Carter Dreckman (45), Ben Douglas (44), Carson Burke (38) and Aleah Eichenberger (34) placed second (206). 

Charles City’s No. 2 squad, led by freshman Kinley Roths, whose 47 matched Kellogg and NH White shooter Jake Schwickerath for highest total during the meet, placed third with 205 team points with Kyler Eskidsen (44), Brady Hanson (40), Parker Deardeuff (37) and Wyatt Parcher (37) rounding out the score. 

Nashua-Plainfield’s No. 1 squad consisting of Lane Barlow (44), Maverick Sinnwell (42), Tate Demro (39), Hunter Brase (38) and Corbin Johnson (36) placed fourth (199).