{"id":255791,"date":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255791\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","slug":"trap-teams-aim-for-the-top-at-n-y-state-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255791\/","title":{"rendered":"Trap teams aim for the top at N.Y. state tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

MUMFORD, N.Y. \u2014 The end of the school year means state tournaments for student-athletes of all kinds across New York state. In Central New York this weekend, hundreds of them will go for the top spots in a competition that takes a steady hand and laser focus.<\/p>\n

Carter Hallett is part of a team that\u2019s going places. He\u2019s not just one of the top shooters on the Caledonia-Mumford trap team. He\u2019s one of the top high school clay target shooters in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge it gives, how hard I’ve had to work to get to the point I am at now,\u201d said Hallett, a senior. \u201cIt’s been a it’s been a while, so I feel I’m feeling proud about what I’ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

This weekend, all 33 members of the Cal-Mum trap team will head to the New York Trap Shooting State Tournament<\/a> in Bridgeport, near Syracuse. Some of the students grew up around guns. Some are new to the sport of hitting that little clay target as it\u2019s launched through the air. It takes practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely learning technique, I’d say, because trap is so repetitive,\u201d said senior Aiden Decker. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those repetitive sports that you really need to lock in for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing is about safety first,\u201d said Rick Grattan, president of Mumford Sportsman\u2019s Club, where the team shoots. \u201cYou know, that’s big. You got to have the safety. Make it fun for them. And then we’ll get them shooting the way they should.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing to do is take your mind off of it,\u201d said Hallett, of the strategy involved. \u201cAny thoughts on your mind that you’re focused on or anything? It’s just going to mess it all up. It’s got to be all natural.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team held its annual end-of-regular-season banquet and a final practice before heading to the state tournament. The sport is growing \u2014 3,200 students from more than 180 schools compete in the New York State High School Clay Target League. Cal-Mum\u2019s team has been around since 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust kind of a sport that I’ve been good at,\u201d explained Chadwick Littleton, also a senior. \u201cKind of from the start, I just kind of got into it. I wasn’t really good at other conventional school sports, and it was just kind of something that clicked for me, and just kind of kept going with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After this weekend\u2019s state tournament, several team members will travel to the USA High School Clay Target League National Championship<\/a> in Michigan in July.<\/p>\n

“All of us are really supportive of each other, no matter what score we get,\u201d said Decker. \u201cAnd that just makes us a really great community here. And I’m really glad I have it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUMFORD, N.Y. \u2014 The end of the school year means state tournaments for student-athletes of all kinds across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11101,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,115,4274,319,200],"class_list":["post-255791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-sports","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-rochester","tag-seth-voorhees","tag-sports","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}