News

Timing is everything in the sport of clay target shooting. 

For Montcalm Community College’s five-man team, it timed its progressively hot shooting as it headed into the two-week stretch of championship competition. 

“These kids picked a good time to be real curious,” chuckled MCC Assistant Coach Bob Pickel. 

The five-person team included sophomore and captain Drake Syrjala (Lakeview, Mich.), freshmen Jack McBride (Portland, Mich.), Azariah Trumble (Greenville, Mich.), Chase Merritt (Greenville, Mich.) and Evan Plonka (Lenox, Mich.). 

The Centurions finished off their season performing at the USA Clay Target Trap Nationals in Bunker Hill, Ill., and then the Michigan College Clay Target Championship in Hillsdale. 

At Nationals, Plonka and McBride, along with two other competitors, were tied for second place with scores of 194 out of 200 targets. The tiebreaker, which considered the reverse run, resulted in Plonka securing third place and McBride placing fifth in the gold division. 

The event had two divisions – gold and silver – in which Merritt finished 17th in the gold division and Trumble took 15th in the silver division.  

At the state tournament in Hillsdale, the Centurions, the only two-year college team in the tournament, stayed zoned in, as they went up against several four-year colleges – many armed with Olympic-training level competitors – finishing the day in second place, only 15 points behind heavily-favored Hillsdale College. 

MCC established a new team record by scoring 50 consecutive targets in the last two rounds, totaling 247 out of 250. Additionally, for the first time this season and in program history, the team participated in the Sporting Clays discipline, achieving an impressive score of 358 out of 500 in its debut. 

McBride nailed a perfect score of 100 – the only male competitor to do so on the day – earning him the top spot in trap. Plonka, meanwhile, finished with a total score of 98, shooting rounds of 24, 25, 24, and 25, which placed him fourth in trap.  

Merritt secured ninth place with a score of 97, including a 50-straight in the last two rounds while Syrjala and Trumble both scored 94, with Syrjala finishing in 18th place and Trumble in 19th place based on a reverse run. 

“What has worked well for me is changing the position where I point my gun before calling for the bird, and a change in mentality,” McBride said of his season-ending performances. “The whole team improved on being consistent between the rounds and keeping it together throughout the 100 shots in a competition.” 

Plonka believes it was the team’s mental toughness that pushed them to the next level at nationals and state. 

“It’s hard to say what improved through the team besides we started busting more birds because so much of the game is mental and, as men, we aren’t real good at talking about what’s going through our heads,” he said. “But, for myself, it was getting comfortable transitioning between guns for trap and skeet since I shoot trap with a real trap gun fit for me, and my skeet gun is just an off-the-shelf field-type non-adjustable semi-auto. That was a big mental step that only seemed to click towards the end of the season.” 

The team earned a league championship while, individually, Merritt finished in second place in the conference with an average of 23.7, and McBride finished third with a conference average of 23.4. 

Pickel, who coaches the team along with Assistant Coach Chris Henry and MCC Athletic Director Hunter Redman, who filled the interim head coach role for this year, was happy to see his team put things together at the end of the season. 

“All of them did really well. All shot their personal best. It was a good time to do what they did,” he said.  

Henry saw each shooter progress well throughout the season. 

“It was an accumulation of things,” he said. “Jack and Evan are better shooters, Chase too, basically learned things through the season. They all had things to work on. They worked on it for two-and-half months, and once they got that mastered, it became a mental game, where you gotta stay even-keeled. Towards the end of the year, they built confidence in themselves to bring in the scores.” 

With raised expectations, MCC has a good foundation for next season, as four of the five marksmen return with loads of experience and accomplishments.  

“I think we’re looking good for next season,” Pickel said. “I hope we can pick up a couple more people. Our goal is to have two teams with some alternates, but we have a good group coming back already.” 

Henry said he hopes MCC will improve on its skeet shooting to get it closer to the team’s excellent trap shooting skills, but, with competitors like McBride and Plonka coming back, he’s excited to see where this team goes next. 

“Hopes are high because from what I’m hearing, some (high school) seniors in the area are interested in coming here, so if we can get those shooters, the future is looking pretty good.” 

Plonka agreed. 

“Being more competitive has me excited for next year,” he said. “A lot of us came a long way from the start of the season, mostly with skeet, but Azariah with trap big time. His performance at states was huge for him. If we can recruit some good guys before then too, it would get that much better.” 

With four of the five coming back, McBride is excited to improve even more from now until the next season. 

“Next year, it will be challenging to keep the level of performances as high as they have been this year,” he said, “and I want to improve my average during the season.” 

Media inquiries, please contact:

Shelly Springborn
Director of Communications and Public Relations
shellys@montcalm.edu
989-560-0833