Sanborn County 4-H Shooting Sports recently ended a successful spring season. Three of the goals of the Shooting Sports program are teaching safety, improving the shooting skills of members and offering competitive opportunities.

As part of the competitive opportunity, member shooters compete against each other at the county level for county placings.  These scores can also be submitted at the state level as “Match” scores to qualify for State Shoot, as well as compete with hundreds of scores submitted by other counties across the state. Throughout the season there were three matches. Archery disciplines include CWS-Compound With Sights, CWS-R-Compound With Sights with Release, CWOS-Compound Without Sights, CWOS-R-Compound Without Sights With Release, C-Open-Compound Open, RWOS-Recurve Without Sights, and RWS-Recurve With Sights.  For each age level, the distance from the shooting line to the target is longer.

The State 4-H Shoot was held April 26-28 in the Pierre and Ft. Pierre area. Shooters were broken down into age groups and by discipline and type of equipment. The South Dakota State 4-H Shoot is one of the largest youth shooting events in the nation. 

Sanborn County had 52 4-H members qualified in 123 events. Of that total, the county had 45 youth compete at the State Shoot with 102 entries in the various disciplines. 

Along with placing in the top five, Sanborn County had a number of shooters and teams who placed in the top percentage of their disciplines and received a purple ribbon indicating a very competitive score, so Sanborn County 4-H was represented well.

Sanborn County shooters set one new county record in guns over the season. Beginner BB Gun Girls was first broken by Hannah Hinker with 354.11, and then knocked off later in the season by Harper Torgerson with 357.07.

Archery records are tracked for scores shot at the county level and state shoot level. Here are the new records: Senior CWOS – County – Whitney Hagman, 98.02; Beginner RWS – County – Kash Kilcoin, 120.03; Senior RWS – County – Riley Kneen, 133.07; and Senior CWSR-State – Carter Christian. 

State Shoot scores are also used to determine which senior level shooters will compete at the National 4-H Shoot competition.  Look for the story on the 2024 National Team participant(s) coming next!

…Read State results and see pictures in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal!