Eric Morken

Competition has a tendency to bring unexpected results from individuals. Nerves can certainly get the best of some in high-pressure situations, while others might sharpen their focus and direct their energy to accomplish things they have not previously accomplished.
The latter is what happened for Mitchell Kelvie, a 17-year-old trap shooter from Lakeville South High School. For the first time in his life, Kelvie shot a perfect score of 100, and he did it twice the same day. Those perfect scores came during the team and individual state trapshooting tournaments at the Minneapolis Gun Club in Prior Lake on June 20.

It would be unusual during the course of nine days of a trap shoot in early June to not run into a few weather-related hiccups in Minnesota.
Student-athletes certainly experienced some of that as heavy rains hit the Alexandria area in the west-central portion of the state late last week. That caused some delays in competition, but in the end, the Alexandria Shooting Park hosted almost 8,100 student athletes from 335 schools for the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League’s 2025 Trap Shooting Championship.

Braxton Ailie did not have the best feeling as he envisioned how his rounds might go on the first day of the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League’s 2025 Trap Shooting Championship in Alexandria.
Ailie said when the weather cooperates, he typically expects good scores to follow. Gusting winds can throw a wrench into those plans, and that’s what shooters faced on Monday – opening day of this nine-day trap shoot dubbed as the world’s largest shooting event.
“With the weather today I thought it was going to be horrible,” Ailie said, “but I ended up shooting a 24 the first round and then 25.”