Montrose, IA – The Indian Hills Sports Shooting squad took down Southeastern Community College in a must-win trap dual at the at the Tri-State Gun Club. The Warriors defeated the Blackhawks 479-472 to secure the No. 2 overall seed in the upcoming Clay Target Craziness.

The Warriors outlasted the Blackhawks by seven targets to finish the regular season with a 3-1 Iowa Community College Athletic Conference (ICCAC) record, the program's best finish in the trap standings in school history.

With the victory, the Warriors clinched the No. 2 seed in the ICCAC East Division and are set to host Iowa Lakes Community College, the No. 3 seed from the ICCAC West Division, in the opening round of the inaugural ICCAC Clay Target Craziness. The 10-team, bracket style format will determine the overall ICCAC regular season trap champions.

2024 CLAY TARGET CRAZINESS BRACKET

"Awesome weekend for the squad," stated head coach Jake Stalzer. "It was great to see the team regroup and come together after a down performance last week. We were able to put some solid scores together and come out with the victory."

Needing a victory over Southeastern to secure the No. 2 seed outright on Saturday, the Warriors saw a number of impressive individual performances, led by 99/100 targets from freshman Jason Stursma (Harvey, IA/Pella). Stursma posted round scores of 25-25-24-25-99 to finish in a shoot-off for first-place. Stursma eventually fell in the extra session, 25-24 to take home silver medalist honors for Indian Hills.

Sophomore Haley Byrge (Chilton, WI/Chilton) brought back the top overall female medal after connecting on 90 targets in regulation. Byrge found herself in a shoot-off as well to determine the ladies top finisher, needing to go two extra rounds to decide the winner. Byrge and Southeastern's Erin Gavin both fired 25's in the first extra session before Byrge outlasted her opponent 25-23 in the second round.

"This shoot was huge, potentially the most important regular season competition the team has competed for, and they delivered," Stalzer added. "Super proud of the whole team and looking forward to a very busy last week of fall. 

Indian Hills also received standout performances from Zane Kirubakaran (Ottumwa, IA/Ottumwa) who posted a 97 overall, including back-to-back rounds of 25 to close out the shoot. Seth Bauman (Grinnell, IA/Grinnell) and Aidan Eischen (New Sharon, IA/North Mahaska) each tallied 95 targets while Cooper Clark (Story City, IA/Roland Story) added 93 birds.

On the women's side, Emma Adams (Oskaloosa, IA/Oskaloosa) was one target off a season-high with 86 targets while Scarlet Meyer (Bloomfield, IA/Davis County) connected on 24 targets in the final round to finish the day with 85 birds.

Indian Hills and Iowa Lakes are set to square off from the Izaak Walton League in Ottumwa at 1:00 PM on Wednesday. The winner will advance to the semifinal round against either No. 4E Southeastern or No. 1W Iowa Western Community College on Friday afternoon with the higher seed serving as host. The winner of the inaugural Clay Target Craziness will be determined at Saturday's ICCAC/SCTP State Championship in Waukee between the final two teams from Friday's semifinal round.

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