Youth club has a real blast
EVANS CITY — Thanks to the Evans City Sportsman's Club, youths are becoming bigger players in trap shooting.
Tom Schoeffel, who got involved with the Butler County Trap League when he was 18 years old, started the Evans City Sportsman's Youth Trap Club in 2004.
At the time, Schoeffel was president of the sportsman's club. He is now on the board of directors.
"At first, I thought of making trap shooting an intramural sport at Seneca Valley High School," Schoeffel said. "But I got nowhere with that.
"So I told other members of (ECSC) that we should just do this ourselves."
"When we started, there were 15 other youth trap leagues in the state and 14 of them were out east. There was one up in Edinboro."
Most of the young trap shooters, who are ages 12 to 18, come from Zelienople, Cranberry Township, Mars, Connoquenessing, Harmony and Evans City.
The youth club was a success right from the start and it's only getting bigger.
"That first year, we had 36 kids," Schoeffel said. "Then we went to 42 in 2005 and 60 in 2006. This year we're expecting between 80 and 100 kids."
The 2007 season will be Jake Ifft's fourth with the trap club.
"I thought it would be a good thing to try," said Ifft, 15. "It took me that first year to really get the hang of it. I also hunt and it's a good way to practice for bird hunting."
The youth club is composed of three teams: the Pintails, Mallards and Teal.
"What we try to do is split up the experienced shooters among the three teams to make it more competitive," said Schoeffel. "The competition was very close last season."
The club's season runs from late March until late May, with competitions at the Evans City Sportsman's Club every Monday.
Tiffany Osselborn, 14, of Evans City is the only girl in the youth trap club.
"A lot of the boys make bets that I won't be able to hit the targets from a certain position," said Osselborn. "I don't take offense to it, but most of them end up losing their money."
Schoeffel has seen many inexperienced youths join the club."Most of the kids that join have no prior experience with trap shooting," he said. "But on the night of registration, we go through the safety aspects and take them to the range to shoot. We have an adult right there next to the kids, giving them instructions."We don't let them shoot on their own until I'm comfortable that they can do it. But, the kids are very safety conscious."After joining the youth club, trap shooters don't have to worry about paying for equipment."Last year, we received $3,500 in donations from different individuals and businesses," said Schoeffel. "That went toward buying everything from shells to the clay birds that they shoot to money for transportation and lodging at different events."The highlight of the youth trap league's three-year existence came in June when five of its best shooters took third out of 17 teams at the Pennsylvania State Trap Shoot in Elysburg.The squad followed up that impressive showing with a 23rd-place finish out of 107 teams at the Grand America Shoot in St. Louis in August.The five trap shooters included Wayne Reeb, Tyler Gandy, Kaleb Watson, Justin Schoeffel and John Schoeffel."The state shoot was fun and we ended up placing pretty high," said Justin Schoeffel, 17. "Then, at the Grand America Shoot, that was amazing. I never thought we would get that far. But it was an honor to compete against teams from all over the country."Any youth interested in trap shooting can contact the sportsman's club at 724-538-5612."Anytime you can get kids involved, it's great," said Tom Schoeffel. "We've really done something great here."
