Trap Competition Leads National Junior Olympic Championships

[USA Shooting]

Trap Competition Kicks Off National Junior Olympic Championships
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (June 20, 2018)
More than 225 young Shotgun athletes have made their way to Colorado Springs to compete in the annual National Junior Olympic Shooting Championships (NJOSC). The annual celebration of Junior Shotgun talent begins tomorrow and runs through June 29 at the International Shooting Park just south of the city at Fort Carson.

On the line for these athletes are NJOSC medals and potential invitations to the National Junior Team. For a handful of athletes, this year’s NJOSC will also serve as a tune-up prior to the Shotgun Selection Match in late July, as well as the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship later in August in Changwon, South Korea. Junior Shotgun athletes earned their slots on the team for the World Championship during the Spring Selection match in March.

The competition begins with Men’s and Women’s Trap running through Tuesday, and Men’s and Women’s Skeet rounding out the week Wednesday through Friday. A preview of the Skeet competition will be released Tuesday. To qualify for NJOSC, Trap athletes had to shoot at least an 80/125 targets at a state Junior Olympic competition.

In the Men's Trap competition, last year’s NJOSC champion Dale Royer (Jackson, Montana) returns to defend his title. In his last year of Junior eligibility, Royer is not wasting his final year of youth competition, finishing atop the Junior field in the World Championship selection process and winning gold last month at the Grand Prix in Porpetto, Italy. He’s joined by the defending NJOSC silver medalist Mick Wertz (Muncy, Pennsylvania), who also won an ISSF Trap Mixed Team World Cup medal with Aeriel Skinner in Guadalajara, Mexico in March. Their World Championship teammate Logan Lucas (Pacific, Missouri) will also compete. Also keep an eye on 16-year-old Grayson Davey (Anchorage, Alaska), who is the only Junior to qualify for the Open Team for the World Championship.

On the Women’s side, last year’s gold medalist Emily Hampson has aged out of the Junior ranks, leaving the door open for a new champion to be crowned, and there’s plenty of talent within the Junior ranks to assume that throne. 2017 NJOSC silver medalist Emma Williams (Savannah, Tennessee) has been going strong since NJOSC, winning Junior silver at the 2017 National Championships and finishing just outside the Finals at the ISSF World Championship in Moscow, Russia last summer. Then there’s also Carey Garrison (Crossville, Tennessee), who at just 13-years-old won the Junior Women’s Trap title at the 2017 National Championships and will be the youngest American athlete ever on a USA Shooting Team for the World Championship.

But don’t count out Madelynn Bernau (Waterford, Wisconsin) either, as she earned an individual gold medal and a Trap Mixed Team medal with Royer at the Grand Prix in Porpetto. She will also compete at this year’s World Championship. Last year’s NJOSC bronze medalist Joyce Hunsaker (Corpus Christi, Texas), who joined Hampson and Williams in Russia at last year’s World Championship where they won a team bronze medal, will also compete.

Schedule of events at NJOSC: http://www.usashooting.org/library/Comp ... hedule.pdf.

For more information about the NJOSC, please visit http://www.usashooting.org/7-events/njosc/njoscshotgun.