EAST COAST CLASSIC

EAST COAST

CHAMPIONSHIP AT HUNTERS POINTE MARCH 11 – 14

EAST COAST CHAMPIONSHIP HOA WESLEY ELLIOTT

DEREK MOORE COVERS THIS PERENNIAL FAVORITE

For over 25 years the East Coast Championship has had the reputation of being one of the best Big Blast events on the East Coast. Its home, Hunters Pointe Sporting Clays, is located in Washington, North Carolina, on the banks of the beautiful Pamlico River.

I had not been to Hunters Pointe for years—since the days it was owned by David and Rita Downs. Now owned by the Oliver family, Mike Oliver and son Braxton are heading the charge to retain this shoot as one of the East Coast jewels.

We were helped at registration by Casey Chase, the owner of Score Chaser—the new scoring program now being used widely throughout the country. Score Chaser is truly interactive, allowing you to check your scores as they are added in real time. It gives you the availability to see the breakdown of each stand and compare how you shot a particular stand against the other competitors.

On offer starting on Thursday were side events including

Sporting, 5-Stand, and a 200 target Main Event on Saturday and Sunday.

Lunch was available onsite each day from multiple food truck vendors. And the Friday and Saturday night Make-A- Break shoot-outs were fun to watch. There was a Friday night social and seafood buffet on Saturday night. Vendors included Granny and Mike Sherman, with their PMS truck, with Mike constantly busy fixing guns and Granny making ear molds and selling all the shooting toys to keep things interesting. It all adds to the “feel” of a large tournament to be able to spend time checking out the goodies. Near the vendor area was the practice 5-Stand, which was overflowing with as many as 10 shooters at a time, shaking off the rust after a long winter.

The 5-Stand

I had never shot Eric Dorsey targets, but I felt his thought process was very “Rick Hemingway-esque.” My first time for Rick’s version of 5-Stand was at the Homestead many years ago. He always mixes it up a little different from everybody else, and Eric took that same stance. I found this way of shooting the 50 bird game worked really well—five stations of 10 birds each, with three report pairs and two true pairs at each station.

The 5-Stand was set up in an open space between two sets of trees maybe 30 feet apart. The targets were all good and clearly visible, the most difficult pair being the two true tower birds, because of speed and angle. The targets were such that you got to look at each of the two targets in the true pairs before your turn came around. It was excellently laid out by Eric Dorsey and trapped by Mariana Ulloa, who announced every set of targets before they came and called out the results loud and clear. Bart Otvos, the score keeper, recorded results. Very well done.

Rennie Wilson won the 5-Stand with an awesome 50 straight. Lady champ was Grace Callahan with a 46. Andrea Seefeldt Knight also had 46 and took runner-up.

PROPRIETOR AND TARGET SETTER BRAXTON OLIVER MARIANA ULLOA AND BART OTVOS, TRAPPERS/SCORERS EXTRAORDINAIRE

Side Events

I really enjoyed the 50 bird Super Sporting, set on eight stations in the back field. Once again, the weather was kind to us, and we were treated to more targets set by Eric Dorsey. The event used the same birds as the small gauge, but with the stands set at least 10 feet back and farther to the right. Each station had four different birds. The trappers were young but tried hard to get it right. Cameron Hicks took HOA with 50 straight with Grace Callahan taking high Lady with a 47.

Friday’s Scott Downs Memorial, with targets set by Braxton Oliver, made for a pleasant afternoon. It was shot on the rolling meadows of the main course, which presented great terrain. Braxton used the terrain well to establish some tricky pairs that kept you on your toes. Out of 222 shooters, Wesley Elliott’s 97 was the best score of the day— providing a sign of things to come over the weekend. High Lady was Andrea Seefeldt Knight with an 86. I shot with Andrea and Jared Rumer all weekend, and they both shot very well. Andrea had SIDE EVENTS

THURSDAY PRELIM CH JAMES MCGOWAN 100 SCOTT DOWNS MEMORIAL CH WESLEY ELLIOTT 97 5-STAND CH RENNIE WILSON III 50 SUPER SPORTING CH CAMERON HICKS 50 12G TURNER PARCELL 47 SXS DAVID COLLINS JR. 50 PUMP GUN BRITTON CONDON 46 20G JOHN MAROULIS 47 28G WESLEY ELLIOTT 49 .410 BORE MARK NEFF 47

considerable problems with her trigger, but rebuilt the trigger from parts from her bag on the fly and held it together for the win.

FITASC

One hundred targets were on the FITASC menu, featuring four old style parcours, set up by Braxton Oliver—who was everywhere all weekend making sure everything ran “just so.”

Parcours 1 and 3 were thought to be the easier of the four parcours, if you could call them that.

I spoke to Jared Rumer about

JARED RUMER WITH SQUADMATE ANDREA SEEFELDT KNIGHT LOOKING ON

the course and the most memorable of the targets shot. When you shoot everything that moves, like he does, the best targets tend to stand out. He thought the target skipping off the pond stood out in his mind over all others.

When all was accounted for, Jasper Copelan took HOA with 97, and high Lady was Grace Callahan, having a great weekend with a 93.

FITASC

JASPER COPELAN 97 WILLIAM WALLIS 96 COREY BRADFORD 91 GRACE CALLAHAN WITH JUNIOR SHOOTER LANDON BRADFORD

EDUARD DABRAZHYNET 88

B1 C1 D1 E1 LADY JR NICK GURKINS

85 ANTWON PORTER 82 CAMERON BACON 83 ALEXANDER MARVIN 67 GRACE CALLAHAN 93 TODD HITCH 94 VET MAHMOUD SADIGHI 93 SUP VET BENJAMIN REYNOLDS 91 SR SUP VET HAL COTTINGHAM 75 LEGACY RON NIST 47

Main Event

The Main Event format was 15 Stations—10 with six targets and five with eight targets, both days. Rick Hemingway set Saturday’s leg, and he ramped it up a bit. Rick is a master target setter who likes to play with angles that make you uneasy, taking you out of your game a bit. For example, Station 8 had three pairs of report birds from one of the many towers: a diving target from the right side, followed by a left to right, full face target from the far left, lulling you into complacency. Station 14 presented a conundrum—a screamer down at an angle from a tower, along with a curling bird, as a true pair. Which to take first? I saw it taken both ways, but the smoothest approach seemed to be the screamer first, followed by the curler.

At the end of the day, Cameron Hicks placed first with an outstanding 97. Hicks has been an Army Special Forces Green Beret for eight years now. He is yet another Dan Carlisle student. I knew his dad, Greg Hicks, very well, so I was very pleased to make his acquaintance. As Cameron tells it, after his dad died, he found over 500,000 shotgun shells and decided to shoot them up, getting hooked into the sporting clays game in the process. Lady high gun for Saturday was Grace Callahan. We started the Main Event Sunday at 8:30 a.m. after a Daylight Savings Time “spring forward” time change, with our bodies telling us it was still 7:30 a.m. Sunday’s course was a little different, having been set by Braxton Oliver. We were off on Station 2, with four true pairs from the right, both slowly curling in before diving to the ground.

If I had to pick a target Sunday that was truly a “big boy” target to separate the top shooters, it would be Station 5, which presented a difficult shot from the left—a long target going all the way over to the right and gently dropping, with the rolling terrain making it difficult to read paired with a flat battue going out from far right and curling left. The scores in the lower classes showed lots of zeros, ones and twos on this stand.

Station 12 featured a right to left rabbit and an outward bound, diving 110mm target as a true pair. It was better to take the rabbit first and then the 110 as it was right there in front of you in the back of the clearing.

When the dust settled it was Wesley Elliott with a 96 Saturday

EAST COAST CHAMPIONSHIP RU CAMERON HICKS

EAST COAST CHAMPIONSHIP

WESLEY ELLIOTT 193 CAMERON HICKS 190 TURNER PARCELL 189 WILLIAM HEMINGWAY 172 WILLIAM MOORE 177 GARRETT BARBOUR 165 SHANE BIGGS 164 JACK ANDREWS 144 JUSTIN MULLINS 132 LADY GRACE CALLAHAN 173 SUB JR WILLIAM HEMINGWAY 172 JR TURNER PARCELL 189 VET SCOTT JONES 186 SUP VET STAN RADFORD 179 SR SUP VET RON LANGLEY 152 LEGACY PHILIP SMITH 117

and 97 Sunday (193) for the win, with Cameron Hicks right behind with a 97 Saturday, but only a 93 Sunday (190), for runner-up. Lady champion was Grace Callahan with a 173. n Check out Scorechaser.com where you can get all the scores and peek at the individual station scores.

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410ga. 2-1/2 & 3” 12ga. 2-1/2, 2-3/4, 3 & 3-1/2”

32ga. 28ga. 2-3/4 & 3”

24ga. 20ga. 2-3/4 & 3”

16ga . 2-1/2 & 2-3/4” 10ga. 2-7/8 & 3-1/2”

And Can Do It Progressively !

Up To And Including #5 Shot