Hampton-Dumont-CAL Birdbusters look back on successful season

It was a solid season for the Hampton-Dumont-CAL Birdbusters trapshooting team as the team had 39 students including 17 high school students and 22 middle school students, 12 of the students on the squad this year were new to the team. The team had students from fifth grade all the way through seniors in high school.

The varsity squad ended the year at the state meet with a score of 912/1,000 and took 44th place out of 204 teams. At state, the intermediate advanced team had a score of 893/1,000 and took 15th place out of 87 teams. Individual leaders for the varsity squad at state was Peyton Kofoot who had a score of 189/200 and placed 145th out of 1,031. Ben Harvey had a score of 187/200 and placed 178th out of 1,031, and on the girls side, Jeena Koons had a score of 175/200 and placed 79th out of 229. In the intermediate advanced level at state, Jake Pals had a score of 189/200 and finished in 31st place out of 483, and on the girls side Kallie Nielsen had a score of 175/200 and finished 22nd out of 99. In the intermediate entry level, Will Warneke had a score of 175/200 and finished in 28th place out of 354.

Top scores for the season including Wyatt Allen who had a 100/100, Jenna Koons, Ben Harvey, Peyton Kofoot, and Wyatt Yoder who had scores of 50/50, and Phil Harvey, Josh Wohlford, Nate Gamble, Izick Zweck, Jake Pals, Will Warneke, Zeke Bello, Kallie Nielsen, and Gavin Rodemeyer all had a score of 25/25.

The season went well according to head coach Bill Reichenbacher and his wife Aimee Reichenbacher, the president of the board for the friends of HD Birdbusters.

“The improvements they made throughout the season were amazing,” Aimee said. “We had kids who were super excited about their scores. We had some new ones that had hardly held a gun before that were exceling by the end of the season and it was fun to see the excitement as they were learning new things and putting it all together.”

Last year the team had around 25 members and the 39 students they had this year was the most the team has had since before COVID-19. Bill Reichenbacher said that one reason for the increase in participants is that some of the participants may not be as busy with the other sports going on at the same time. Another reason is that for some of the students, trapshooting is their main sport according to Bill. 

Bill said that helping the students who are new to trapshooting is always a neat experience.

“We start at the extreme basics of ok this is what a gun is,” Bill said. “This is how you handle it and all of that to promote safety first because obviously in all of the other sports you are not dealing with a gun.”

Bill said that safety is extremely important for the team.

“In our situation if the student is doing something wrong it can be deadly. If you throw a football wrong you might hurt somebody’s nose but that is about it. So we are very stringent on safety and teaching new kids proper handling and teaching them about their gun so they know what they are dealing with.”

Bill said that they start with stationary targets before moving on to moving targets. Bill said that members of the team take what the coaches say about safety very seriously.

“They don’t really have much of a choice,” Bill said. “Because if they don’t do something that is safe and they don’t adhere to the warnings oh hey you they can’t do that, they don’t get to shoot.”

The fact that the students have to fundraise to participate in the sport is one reason that helps make sure the kids listen to the warnings.

“We are not sponsored by the school system or any tax dollars or anything like that,” Bill said. “So they have to come up with all of their own funding for this and it is not a cheap thing to be doing. So you have that whole if I can’t shoot I am wasting my time doing all this other stuff and I am losing out on. Another thing is I tell all the students that I have to be able to trust you about this. This is not something that we can be nonchalantly swinging guns around you can just not do this. And if you are not going to be safe you are going to be benched.” 

Bill said that when there are times where they have had to educate a student about a mistake they made when it comes to the guns he said it has been received well.

A popular event the team has is at the end of the season called The Fun Night where family members are invited to come out and shoot alongside the students on the teams.

“It is a hit every year,” Bill said. “We bring new students out and mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and whoever, can go against their son or daughter and try to beat them. It is always fun to see dad try to beat their daughter or whatever and their daughter wins. It is a great opportunity and I don’t see that inside other sports because so many other sports have a physical relationship or something that is more involved in that. While trapshooting everybody is on the same playing field, we are all shooting from the same spot at the same targets at the same speed at the same height. We always say it is the game of consistency and it is a neat opportunity to teach it and be a part of it and see kids grow from it.”