By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
Five Cabot High School trap shooting teams finished in the top sixteen of their respective divisions and qualified for state at the Arkansas Youth Shooting Sports Program’s East Regional on Saturday at Remington Gun Club in Lonoke.
Three senior teams and two junior teams scored high enough to move into the state competition that begins June 1 at Remington Gun Club.
Cabot junior team Virginia City Marksmen won their division with a score of 109 of 125 targets. Junior teams consist of players in eighth grade and lower. The Virginia City Marksmen team beat out Five Rivers Trap Club’s Current River team, and the Corning Junior Squad 1 by three targets to earn the regional championship.
Not far behind in eighth place was Cabot’s Dodge City Destroyers with 99 points. The Durango Destroyers also slipped into state, finishing tied for 13th with a score of 90.
In the senior high division, the Harrisburg Trap Club Triple A team won with a score of 232 of 250.
Cabot’s Tombstone Terrors finished fifth by hitting 219 targets and the Cheyenne Clay Killers hit 208 to finish tied for 14th.
Another Cabot team, the Wolfpack’s Red Wolves squad, unaffiliated with the high-school teams, hit 214 targets to finish tied for 8th place.
Carlisle also put a team in state. It’s No. 1 squad finished 12th with 209 targets hit.
Jacksonville, North Pulaski and Lonoke also entered teams.
But by far the most successful team in the event was the Cabot High School team, which qualified half of its competitors for the state event.
“We had 50 kids compete and 25 of them are going to state,” Cabot assistant coach Kim Hill said. “We’re very proud of that. The kids work hard at it and the parents are very dedicated.”
Cabot head coach Jerry Hill said all the competitors that qualified for state have been at every practice this year.
“They’re a very dedicated bunch,” Jerry Hill said. “We practice three days a week and the ones who qualified have been at every one of them. Some of them even come out on Sunday too and practice on their own.”
