CC trapshooters Gavitt and Robbins join 25 club

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

NEW HAMPTON — There is a such thing as a “near-miss”, it just never gets used in proper context.

For example, people often refer to “near-hits” as “near-misses” when the former is actually a “miss” and the latter is actually a “hit”.

Anyway, Charles City sophomore Levi Robbins recorded a near-miss — or rather a hit — during the fourth stage of his second 25-bird round at Thursday’s New Hampton Trapshooting Invitational at Fredericksburg Sportsman’s Club.

Robbins just got enough of the bird to get the successful shot ruling then later gave a sigh-of-relief look to the official scorekeeper on the way to his final station.

Robbins’ final five shots were not near-misses nor near-hits as they all completely obliterated the clays capping a perfect 25-of-25 round — the first of his high school trapshooting career.

“I was so nervous on my last shot,” said Robbins, who also shot a career-best 47 to lead all Charles City/Nashua-Plainfield trapshooters at the invite, “but I’m much more calmer than I was last year.”

Earlier, Charles City’s Colby Gavitt recorded a perfect 25 round before following up with a 21 in the second round for total score of 46.

Two days earlier at a meet at Nashua Fish and Game Club, Gavitt was able to best Nashua-Plainfield’s Bobbie Gipple in a shootoff for third place.

Also at that meet, Charles City senior Bailee Bortz became the first CC/N-P trapshooter to hit all 25 clays in a round.

When it came to individual honors among the male shooters, Robbins was one shot shy of shooting for a chance for first place in a shootoff as five shooters tied with 48 scores.

After the first shootoff, the field was whittled to two, placing New Hampton’s Luke Croell and Osage’s Ben Poppe way back to the 27-yard-line for a sudden-death shootoff. After both shooters missed their first shots, they each hit three in a row. After Poppe missed his fifth shot, Croell crushed his to seize third place.

Jordan Holthaus of New Hampton placed third among the male shooters.

New Hampton’s Katie Holschlag and Journey Howe each hit 46 clays to lead the ladies, prompting a shootoff of their own, which Holschlag won.

Croell, Holthaus, Holschlag, Karson Crooks (47) and Cameron Mass (46) combined efforts for a 235 first-place team score for New Hampton Red.

Charles City 2, which included Robbins, Devon Alton (44), Jace Landt (42), Leo Trebbien (41) and Dylan Bilharz (40), scored 214 as a team — the best from a Charles City squad this season.

Nashua-Plainfield 1, which included Gipple (45), Kollyn Lentz (44), Marissa Fuerstenberg (43), Cooper Fisher (41) and Ashton Lamborn (35), scored 208 as a team — the best from a Nashua-Plainfield squad this season.

Fuerstenberg, Gipple and Lentz were nearly locked in during the second round as they all hit 24 of 25 clays.

Charles City 1, consisting of Gavitt, Bortz (38), Carter West (43), Evan Schmidtke (41) and Kaleb Osier (38), scored 206 as a team.