BY JESSALYN KIRCHHOFF
GRAPHIC BY ALYXIUS TORRES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In true Tiger spirit, the FHSU Shooting Sports Team was built upon the shared idea from a group of students that wanted to do more at Fort Hays State University than just go to their classes everyday. In the summer of 2005, these students began their journey by writing the constitution for what would become the FHSU Shooting Sports team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Fall Semester of 2005 with newly written constitution in-hand, six individuals approached Duane Shepherd with the intention of starting a new organization on campus. These individuals wanted to create a team that would compete in collegiate shotgun shooting sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From there, the first \u2018meet\u2019 for the team was a National tournament held in March of the 2006 Spring Semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, almost 17 years, eight National Championships, 11 Conference titles, and 15 All-American shooters later, the FHSU Shooting Sports team is much more than an idea. It is a legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President of the FHSU Shooting Team, Lane Sorensen, says there are no true requirements to join the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe qualifications to join the shooting team are minimal. We support a \u2018walk on\u2019 program. Anyone can join the team if they are interested,\u201d Sorensen said. \u201cAs far as \u2018recruitment\u2019 goes, most of these students search us out and want to come to Fort Hays. Recently, in the last couple of years we have been sending students to youth shooting events and competitions in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Katie Dettmann, secretary for the team, describes a typical meet day as never the same, but says there is a pattern that the competitions follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe day will start out with a safety meeting and some instructions or information that the shooters or coaches need to know about,\u201d Dettmann said. \u201cAfter that initial meeting, we will then meet as a team and have our own meeting to discuss what the shoot times are and where each person needs to be at which certain times. After the team has their meeting, everyone will put their guns together to get ready to go and compete for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She continues saying most of the time, the team shoots an event and then eats a lunch prepared by the parents. The team then goes to another event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTypically, we will only shoot two events a day,\u201d Dettmann said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dettmann describes her favorite memory as having an undefeated season in the fall semester of 2018 and the spring semester of 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a huge accomplishment,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sorensen details a day in which the team got rained on during a skeet shooting event at the 2021 Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) Nationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI mean, there was no good way of hiding, running or getting away from it. We had to shoot 100 targets in the rain,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember looking at my squadmates smiling from ear to ear laughing and having a great time. There\u2019s simply no better way to test yourself than to shoot in heavy rain, completely soaked, and surrounded by cold conditions outside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even with the less than ideal circumstances, Sorensen recounts the team being victorious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur squad did go on and shoot very well, shooting a 494\/500 in the conditions. Just being there to experience it was amazing, and then, after that, we went on to win that National shoot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Dettmann and Sorensen agree it is important for students to get involved with whichever club, organization, or group piques their interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI believe it to be extremely important to be involved on campus,\u201d Dettmann said. \u201cAs a student, being involved gives you the opportunity to meet new people and gives you the opportunity to meet your lifelong friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sorensen agrees with Dettmann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe friends you meet in college are not like hometown highschool friends,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything about it is different, a different friendship and a different situation. My closest friends I have now I met here at FHSU and I consider them family. They really are friendships that will last a lifetime.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Together, the teammates revel in their club\u2019s successes and thank everyone that has contributed to those accomplishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThroughout all the years, the team\u2019s success that we have received can be accredited to the people that have the drive to win and sacrifice whatever is necessary to do so,\u201d Sorensen said With that being said, we both would like to extend all of our teammates\u2019 gratitude and to thank Fort Hays State University, the professors, and everyone in between for the support over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe success we have is because of the support we get from everyone and we are very grateful for that,\u201d Dettmann said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FHSU Shooting Sports team has \u2018club night\u2019 at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday nights every week (weather permitting). The team also has their home shoot coming up on Saturday starting at 9:00 a.m. at Lasada Lodge in Russell. They encourage anyone who is interested in the team, or who would like to join their support system, to come out and watch the shoot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More information on the FHSU Shooting Sports team can be found on their Tigerlink at https:\/\/tigerlink.fhsu.edu\/organization\/shootingsports<\/a> or on their Facebook page at https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100057319605628<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY JESSALYN KIRCHHOFFGRAPHIC BY ALYXIUS TORRES In true Tiger spirit, the FHSU Shooting Sports Team was built upon the shared idea from a group of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":71432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3398,11,3407,7349],"tags":[2673,14936,14861,13925,15103,14837],"class_list":["post-71439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","category-news","category-shooting","category-sports","tag-fhsu-shooting-team","tag-fhsu-student-org-feature","tag-fhsu-student-organization-feature","tag-jessalyn-kirchhoff","tag-shooting-sports-team","tag-shooting-team"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/FHSU-SHOOTING-SPORTS.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71440,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71439\/revisions\/71440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/71432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}