MVSS SCTP competed last week in Raton at the NMHSCTA Championship for the 2023 season.
The week started on a beautiful Sunday morning with skeet. Forest Browning came out smashing the birds, with a 78, and tied for second. After the shoot off he took third for the intermediate division.1st Caleb Delk 96, 2nd Tyler Smelker 95, and 5th Woody Crawford 92, in the senior males division. Emily Massey was smoking the targets with an 89, and ending up tied for 2nd place, while winning the shooting shotoff. Taylor Ramirez shot well finish 8th in the senior ladies division. Overall team ended up winning the Skeet Senior Division with MVSS 283, Carlsbad 278, and Sierra Blanca 265. They also smoked the competition for the year with a total yearly score of MVSS 1677, Carlsbad 1635, Sierra Blanca 1608. Tyler Smelker held on to the season skeet championship with 579, 2nd Caleb Delk 569, and 3rd Hayden Casson 561 Sierra Blanca.
The following day the team competed in Skeet Doubles. We throw great targets at our range in Las Cruces, these targets were pretty poorly thrown, especially with new machines. Scores were lower than expected, but it affected every shooter. Again, Forest Browning came out smashing the birds with a 41 out of 50 to take 1st in the intermediate division. The rest of the team continued the same pattern with 1st place Caleb Delk lead the attack with a 90, 2nd Tyler Smelker 88, and Josiah Martinez 85. Emily Massey shot well in Doubles taking 3rd place in Skeet Doubles Senior Ladies Division. Again the team took 1st in this event, with MVSS 263, Carlsbad 260, and ALBQ 238. Tyler Smelker was the year end Champ in Doubles, sweeping the skeet year events, while Caleb Delk sweep the Skeet State Events, they both brought out the brooms for MVSS.
Trap was updown event for all our shooters. Had some really great moments with Caleb Delk, Tyler Smelker, Woody Crawford, and Kaleb Massey as a squad shooting 25 straight in one round. The highlight of trap was the Team finished overall in 3rd place with 2263 birds smashed, Sierra Blanca second with 2285, and Long Shots 2297. Emily Massey was 4th overall in trap in Ladies Senior Division, Caleb Delk 4th in Senior Male Division, and Tyler Smelker rounded out the top 10. The best highlight of the event MVSS 6 out of 8 shooters all shoot 90 or high in the first 100, and 8 out of 9 repeated in the second hundred. That was awesome to see everyone shoot well, and that is why the team was 3rd overall.
Sporting clays was a lot of fun as a team. Forest Browning was 4th in the intermediate state event with 72 and tore up the year with 1st place for season. The rest of the team shot well in the event, but a couple of stations could have changed everything.
The final is about top gun, youth that shot all events, which was over 800 rounds each. The team shot well for the week, and ended up second overall with 3520 birds crushed, behind Carlsbad with 3558, and Sierra Blanca third with 3372. Forest was tied for second place 418 birds crushed, awesome job by Forest all week. Forest will have an awesome future in this sports, keep crushing the birds. Emily Massey was 4th place overall with 673 in Senior Ladies Division, while Lillie Jaramillo was in 10th place with 540. Great job ladies on crushing birds all week.. Caleb Delk was second place in Male Senior Division with 743 birds crushed, one bird behind the winner Dillion Lopez from Carlsbad. Awesome thing is we had Tyler Smelker 5th with 722, and Woody Crawford 8th, 700, Josiah Martinez 15th, 682. We had 6 out of 8 youth in their own division in the top ten of their division. Awesome team.
Last, would like to congratulate our seniors for 2023, you will all be missed on your next adventure.
Caleb Delk, will be attending, Blinn college / Texas A&M in the fall. It will be awesome watching him shoot for the 2023 National Champion Texas A&M team in the fall.
Woody Crawford will be attending NMSU, and will be on the NMSU inaugural shotgun team. NMSU, will have their first team for 2023, and with the great shooters in New Mexico, they are going to be tough out of the gates. Also, congrats to Woody for being top 10 percent at Mayfield in his graduating class.
Tyler Smelker, will be attending Fort Hays State University, and shooting on their 2023 National Team. Also, congrats to Tyler for being top 5% of the Las Cruces High School graduating class.
It was a pleasure coaching these youth this year, but couldn’t have been accomplished without the help from Preston. Thanks for your dedication to the youth. Your availability to help coach will always be appreciated by this team.
Also, it could not have been completed without the support of all the MVSS members, and all the donors that helped support the team. This program is growing, and we are helping grow some awesome youth.
We are not finished as Caleb Delk, Tyler Smelker, Woody Crawford, and Kaleb Massey will be shooting in the National 4 H Shotgun Event the last week of June, More to come on these great youths career.
Again, thank you all for the great support.
Coach Michael Smelker
Coach Preston Benifield `
