News

By Ryan Schlehuber, MCC Sportswriter

Things just keep ratcheting up for the Montcalm Community College Centurions clay target team, as it earned a third-place finish at the USA College Clay Target League’s National Trap Shooting Championship held at Brittany Shooting Park in Bunker Hill, Ill., Nov. 1-2. 

“This means a lot,” said first-year MCC head coach Chris Henry. “To finish third at the national championships, that’s huge for our little school.” 

The third-place national championship finish is the best MCC’s clay target team has done yet, and it’s only in its third year of the program.  

The seven-man Centurions totaled 948 points, only behind Lindenwood University (Mo.), which won the tournament with 982 team points, followed by Lake Land College (Ill.), which finished with 972 points. 

MCC edged out Southwest Wisconsin Technical College by two points for the third-place spot.  

The tournament had 20 teams competing overall, which included several four-year universities that fielded 15-plus shooters on a team. 

“We were up against some schools who had 20 kids on the team, and when you can take the top five from those many shooters, I think that says a lot about our team of seven shooters and where we ended up,” Henry said. “Coming into this, I was just hoping for some individual awards. I didn’t think it was in the cards for us to earn team awards.” 

The tournament, which was split into two divisions — Gold and Silver — took the top five shooters from each team to make up the official team scores. For MCC, freshman Hunter Doolittle (Crystal, Mich.) led the way, finishing ninth overall with a score of 195 out of 200. Sophomore Chase Merritt (Greenville, Mich.), who finished 14th, was right behind him with a 194 score.  

Finishing up the team scoring was Evan Plonka (Lenox, Mich.), who finished second in the Silver Division, with 187; Jack McBride (Portland, Mich.) with a 187; as well, and Logen Steffen (Lowell, Mich.), with a 185. 

Henry said Doolittle was a pleasant surprise to lead the team but he has said all season long that any of his seven shooters could lead a pack. 

“He was definitely the most impressive on our team,” Henry said of Doolittle’s team-leading performance. “That was his personal best.” 

Doolittle credited his great showing to adjustments he made during the regular season. 

“I’m not sure what got me in the groove for the event, but a week prior, I had figured out a pace and form that worked better for me,” Doolittle said. “It allowed me to shoot more comfortably leading into Friday, break 50 straight in practice then continue to break the next 75 straight on Saturday in competition.” 

Like his coach, Doolittle wasn’t expecting a top three finish, team-wise. 

“I was pretty surprised with the third place overall with the disadvantage we have as a third-year program and some of our top shooters struggling during this competition,” he said. “I think that this is a good mark and an opportunity for MCC to promote us a little more and allow for more funding and enabling us to find more shooters for next season.” 

On the season, the Centurions finished second in the 2025 fall trap overall standings for 1A-Conference 2, finishing with a total score of 604.50, only behind Concordia College of Moorhead (Minn.), which totaled 631.50. 

In skeet, however, MCC won the 1A-Conference 1 with a total score of 632.00, beating out second place Illinois College (Ill.) by 156.5 points. Saint Johns University (Minn.) took third with a score of 443.50.