LA GRANDE — When it first started, John Shorts didn’t envision the Eastern Oregon University trapshooting team would be able to achieve what it did on Sunday, Jan. 22.

Win a conference championship.

Yet that is what happened, as the team defeated six other schools, including Arizona State University in a shoot-off, to win the ACUI/SCTP West Coast Conference championship in Las Vegas.

“It’s showing these kids they are good enough to compete against anyone we go against. We’re capable of competing and winning in these tournaments,” Shorts, the club sport’s head coach, said. “It also shows the university itself that these kids are coming together and really starting to get serious about it and progressing to a level to where they are truly a competitive team.”

EOU took second at the conference championships a year ago. This time, the team not only topped the conference champion from 2022 — Fort Hayes — but also the rest of the field, which also included Colorado State, Fresno State, U.S. Air Force Academy and Missouri Science and Tech. But there was certainly some late drama in getting the title.

Hitting the targets

ASU and EOU finished the conclusion of the event with identical scores of 1,839 points (out of 2,250), Shorts said. Each school picked a competitor for the tiebreaker, which Shorts called “a miss and out shoot-off.”

Each competitor had two targets launched at the same time and had to attempt to hit both. Shorts said the shoot-offs can go numerous rounds, or be done quickly.

The ASU competitor went first, and hit one of two targets.

Elias Tollefson, who already had won two individual events for Eastern, stepped up and quickly ended the suspense by connecting on both his targets, giving EOU the championship.

Shorts said while it was a high-pressure scenario, Tollefson’s experience from being part of several other trapshooting groups paid off.

“It was definitely a lot of pressure on Elias at the time,” the coach said. “(He) has a lot of competition experience under his belt. He has had quite a few shoot-offs.”

In all, Eastern won 12 medals for top-three finishes across six events. Tollefson led the men’s team with first-place showings in doubles skeet and super sporting and was third in skeet, while in doubles trap Joe Mundy placed second and Schuyler Hornung was third.

The women’s team, meanwhile, brought home seven medals. Savannah Shorts led the way with three medals — all for third-place finishes — in trap, skeet and doubles skeet. Emilee Freeman collected third in both sporting clays and super sporting, and EOU had a 2-3 finish in doubles trap with Kailee Mansveld placing second and Elizabeth Zamora third.

“It’s the first one that EOU (has) won, so that was pretty neat to be a part of,” Savannah Shorts said of the championship.

Getting bigger

The trapshooting team has grown — both in numbers and in skill level — from when John Shorts was asked to be an adviser for a new club in 2015.

“One day I was looking online and found the ACUI. I brought it up to the students. They said, ‘Let’s give it a try,’” Shorts said.

Being part of the Accredited College Union International Clay Target Program opened the door for members of the new club to gain experience in multiple events: trap, double trap, skeet, double skeet, sporting clays and super sporting. The payoff is everyone can shoot effectively in all the events, which wasn’t the case in the early days of the club.

“When you go to a tournament like that, you might have one shooter that excels in trapshooting, the next might in sporting clays, and the other might in skeet,” Shorts said. “Our depth is getting better, for sure. At first our only strong event was trap. It’s starting to be a more well-rounded team, which helps at tournaments like this.”

Now, Eastern has several members who compete in the Pacific International Trapshooting Association and the Amateur Trapshooting Association, Shorts said, gaining even more experience that helps at big events.

And with the team starting to earn more success, the tenor of the group is changing.

“The biggest shift in my opinion is watching us go from a club to a competitive team,” Savannah Shorts said. “This is my third year, but before I got here and then my freshman year, it was more of a club. We didn’t expect to win anything. Now we want our top five scores to be good. We want to compete as a team.”

Team member Brett Troutman added that experience and knowing what to expect is also pushing the group.

“I think the biggest thing would be last year, for pretty much all of us on the team, we were going to all these events and not knowing what to expect,” he said. “Most of us weren’t major competitive shooters. This year, we kind of expect to go and shoot well, and are disappointed if we don’t shoot well.”

Heading to nationals

EOU is set to compete against Boise State University in Boise Feb. 11, then will send 10 of its team members to San Antonio, Texas, for the Collegiate Clay Target Championships, which begin March 21.

Eastern has sent several individuals to nationals over the years, but coming off a win in the conference championship will be an added bonus, according to Troutman, who competed at nationals a year ago.

“I think that it gives us a lot of momentum,” he said. “This is by far the best we’ve ever done at the competition in Las Vegas. We want to keep our confidence up.”

Nationals will be more intensive than the conference championships as each competitor will end up taking 600 shots as opposed to 450 in Las Vegas, John Shorts said, and do so over four days. Any shoot-offs, should Eastern need one again for individual or team placings, will be on March 25.

EOU has had success recently at nationals, as Mundy a year ago placed fifth in double trap.

“Last year at nationals there (were) just over 100 schools there with just over 1,000 students shooting,” the coach said.

A strong effort in San Antonio, coming off the Vegas win, will likely help the club sport continue to gain notoriety and keep growing, he said.

And though the competition will be more challenging, Savannah Shorts said, she believes more could follow in Mundy’s steps and place.

“I think realistically we could have a couple people place individually,” she said. “As a team, I think we should strive to place in trap, trap double, skeet, skeet double. It’ll be hard. Hopefully it goes well for us.”