Southwestern's sports shooting team traveled to The Stockdale Gun Club at Ackley for the final shoot of the year, the Collegiate State Championships.

Spartan Head Coach Marc Roberg said the weather was the worst they had all year with heavy rain turning to sleet and snow and 25+ mph winds from the north. According to Roberg, the team has faced bad weather in Ackley before, but this year's conditions were almost impossible to shoot in and therefore scores suffered.

Throughout these extreme conditions, Roberg said he was extremely proud of how the team handled it and how well they shot with these conditions.

The Spartans ended up sixth out of 11 teams with Tyllar Roesener (89), Kyle Redinbaugh (83), Blake Binns (81), Jessica Aupperle (79), and Devin Meeks (78) being the top five shooters and the team score of 410/500. Roesener’s 89 put him in a tie with three others for 15th place in the men’s division. Aupperle tied for sixth in the women’s division with a 79 and Casey Allen was right behind with a 78 for eighth place. Sydney McElfish was in 10th place with a 77 and Courtney Nielson was in 11th with a 76.

Because of the weather conditions, the event was shortened to 100 birds, instead of the normal 200 birds for the state championships.

Medals were handed out for various aspects of conference shooting. Nielson received the sixth place medal for the year in the women’s singles division of the conference with a 459/500. She also took fourth place for the year in the handicap trap league. Allen was sixth in handicap. Handicap league is shot from the 25 yard line. Regular singles trap is shot from the 16 yard line.

Roberg said he felt the Spartans had a pretty good year all in all.