2022 NORTHEAST REGIONAL FITASC GRAND SLAM AT HOPKINS GAME FARM

BY LOUISE TERRY

The eastern shore of Maryland is always busy and a fun place to be during the summer months. This year the NSCA Northeast Regional and FITASC Grand Slam was held at Hopkins Game Farm in Kennedyville, Maryland, which added to the action the week of August 17-21, 2022. This was the sixth of eight events making up this year’s NSCA Championship Tour and the fourth and final event of the 2022 NSCA FITASC Grand Slam Tour. With picture-postcard weather all weekend, this was the place to be. Even on days when you might not be happy with your shooting, there is always a lot of great, fresh seafood to enjoy in the area restaurants.

627 shooters were on hand for the weekend with 503 shooting the Main Event making this the second largest Regional held this year. George Hopkins with his sons, Brad and Bart, spent months planning the targets and laying out the courses. All the targets for this tournament were set by George and Brad. I finally caught up with them to chat for a few minutes on Sunday afternoon where George explained they worked all last fall building new stands, gunracks and benches. They laid out new course sections with new roadways for a large part of both Main event courses, and FITASC. So, even shooters who are familiar with shooting events at Hopkins got the chance to see and shoot new stations on different pieces of the farm this trip.

Off and Running

The program opened up on Wednesday with the first day of the two-day FITASC rotation (100 targets per day) for the 200-target Grand Slam, as well as the 50-target 28- and 20-gauge

We are passionate about the shooting sports and are driven to help women become involved in the great outdoors. Our goal is to provide the equipment and knowledge that make the experience more enjoyable and less stressful. This is our mission.

FITASC. For FITASC shooters who were not on the Wednesday/ Thursday rotation, they shot a 3-day FITASC program of 75,75,50 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Thursday morning, all the other events opened full steam: Great American Prelim 100 (Thursday and Friday), 5-Stand 100 (Thursday through Sunday) Super Sporting 100 (Thursday through Saturday), True-Pair Prelim 100 (Thursday through Saturday), and sub- gauge, Side by Side and Pump 50s (Thursday through Saturday). So, shooters were busy all weekend, including the practice traps that were open daily from 7am to 5pm.

Preliminary and Side Events

The Great American Preliminary was a 16-station course shot Thursday or Friday along the crossroad cutting through the middle of the property. Of the 337 participants, South Carolina’s Chris Ferres scored the only 97 to handily take top honors, followed by Allentown, PA shooter Shawn Kemeter (M1) with a 96. Wendell Cherry and Joe Carey tied with 95s for M2 and M3 respectively. Karen Shedd and Shelby Moon were tied for the Ladies title with 88s with Shedd prevailing to take the win over Shelby, followed by Kayla Wilgus’ 86 for third place.

The True Pair 100 and the Super Sporting 100 were set on the same course with different menus on the 13 stations, out along the back field and amongst the trees on the very back of the property. The combined menus caused some initial confusion on the first day, and having both events on the same course made for some heavy course traffic on Friday and Saturday afternoons as shooters were scrambling to complete their cards. The Super Sporting targets were all visible and started out relatively straightforward on the first several stations, becoming progressively more challenging out to stations nine through eleven (the “separator” stations) at the end of the row with several great tower targets, true pairs, and distant sets. Stations 12-16 were set across the cart path at the edge of the woods on the way back towards Station 1. All in all, an interesting and fun layout. Wendell Cherry posted an uncontested 98 ahead of the 295-shooter field. He was closely followed by Brandon Powell, Mike Lungo and Gebben Miles all on 97, finishing M1, M2, and M3 respectively. Karen Shedd posted a hot 90 to take the Ladies title, posting the only Ladies score in the 90s. Shelby Moon was Ladies runner-up on 88, with Reanna Frauens close behind with 87 for Ladies third.

The True Pair preliminary had a field of 170 shooters. North Carolina’s Braxton Oliver came out on top of this field with the only 97, followed closely by David Collins, Jr with 96 and Chris Ferres and Virgil Minshew both logging 95s. Madison Sharpe blasted an 86 to win the Ladies title with Paulena Prager’s 83 taking Ladies runnerup.

5-Stand

The 100 target 5-Stand event was set on the front of the property with layouts 1 and 2 behind the tree line just to the left of the entrance driveway, and layouts 3 and 4 continuing around the curve amongst the trees behind the clubhouse. I didn’t shoot this event but from the looks of the scores, the 346 shooters who did, all enjoyed it and ate up the targets. Brandon Powell must have been sharpening his eye for the Main Event as he posted a red hot 99, dropping that one target on the third layout for the win. There were four 98s right behind him: Joseph Fanizzi, Wendell Cherry, Anthony Materese, and Mike Wilgus. This was to be settled in a Sunday night shoot-off on the 5-Stand layout number four. By then, though, both Anthony and Mike Wilgus had already left the grounds, so the contenders for Runner-up were Cherry and Fanizzi. In light that was fading, Wendell shot first missing a rabbit and a #5 crosser. Fanizzi took advantage of that open door by running all his targets to take M1. There were three 95s tied for the Ladies title: Haylyn Hanks, Reanna Frauens, and Shelby Moon, also to be settled in a shoot-off. Shelby had already headed for home, so Haylyn and Reanna shot off, with Hanks prevailing.

FITASC Grand Slam

The Beretta FITASC Grand Slam 200 presented excellent targets with a lot of variety on the eight, old-style layouts. These were vintage George Hopkins presentations worthy of a Grand Slam caliber event. Parcours one and two were set in the flat, open fields behind the trees to the left of the main cart path just past the clubhouse. Parcours three and four continued out in pretty much a straight line along the cart path, but with rising elevation which gave them more contour and some down-sloping shots beneath the pegs. All targets were visible and interesting. Continuing up along the ridge line, parcours five was what you might call, in the vernacular, “a real piece of work.” It was a section new to me, shot from the three pegs which were a hike down off the ridge and set along the creek bottom. High overheads, a fast rabbit, long crossers, both up high and flat. This shooting layout had it all. Next, parcours six had quite a variety of targets too. They were flying down the hill into the ravine from several different directions, along with some giant overheads up and over the treetops. This happened to be where I started, so maybe that’s why it felt like the most difficult of the Parcours to me. After that, 7 and 8 seemed almost relaxing, set on the level among some big, beautiful, mature pine trees.

As I studied the scores for the top shooters, I observed that only the top six competitors were able to straighten any of the parcours. Breaking the winning score, Gebben Miles shot an amazing 193 which consisted of three flawless

25s. Joseph Pinchin, who ended up fifth overall, carded two straights, and there were only four other shooters who managed to run a single straight parcour: Zach Kienbaum, Braxton Oliver, Trevor Jensen, and Joe Fanizzi.

Braxton Oliver was on top of the leaderboard after the first 100 completed on Wednesday, but by the time the weekend was over, Gebben Miles stole the show with his 193. Zach Kienbaum M1 posted a strong 189, Braxton Oliver held on to break 187 for M2, and there were three tied on 182 to round out the top six places: Trevor Jensen M3, Joseph Pinchin M4 and Joe Fanizzi M5.

In the Ladies race, there were no straight Parcours recorded, however, Madison Sharpe and Reanna Frauens tied for top Ladies honors each on 175, closely followed by Karen Shedd posting a 173. It should be noted that these scores put Sharpe and Frauens in the top 20 shooters in the entire field, which was a top seven percent finish for both. In the Sunday night shoot-off, shooting one peg on the Make-a-Break, Sharpe won Ladies honors on the true pairs. There were some big targets on the menu and some great shooting by these ladies.

The Regional Championship

So, on to the finale, the Northeast Regional Main Event. There were two 16-station courses, each of which had a number of new stations: The Elite Blue course, which from stations four thru nine were new cut-outs in the woods, and 10 thru 16: which were on the edge of, or mostly in the woods. Variety was infinite. Blue number 10 was a true pair in a clearing, very visible - a high black crosser from the left and a fast-rising teal way out in front. Station 11 was an overhead coming from behind, and a teal coming up out of the bottom of a deep ravine; number 12 was a quick, off-speed left to right true pair, station 13 was a true pair rabbit and quick crosser both from the left... you get the idea. The Laporte Red course began on the east side of the pond just above the dam so all but station 16, on this course, were out in the open. It continued along the water into the corner, then up the hill and out back around a loop to a second smaller pond, then back around the fields to end up shooting station 16 into the woods across the cart path from the front corner of the pond. On both courses, the targets were fun, and many didn’t look that difficult, but they had their subtleties to them. Off-speed pairs, up and downhill, rascally rabbits, some fast true pairs, edgy sky birds and dropping tower birds. The only complaint I heard about visibility the whole weekend was on the blue course, station seven which was a true pair from behind on the upper left, headed straight down to the bottom of a deep ravine. Between the speed and angle of the targets and the “strobing” shadows, this pair presented a challenge for some shooters, but all faced that same challenge.

In the end, the Main Event courses gave up only three 98s across 503 shooters, both days. Two of those 98s belonged to Brandon Powell. Powell’s 196x200 cemented his status as the Regional Champion. In fact, there

Brandon’s pair of 98s topped off a stellar weekend after his secondplace finish (97) in Super Sporting and his Championship honors (99) in the 5-Stand. Zach Kienbaum was three targets behind Powell taking the Main Event runner-up honors, also topping off his strong FITASC finish taking second in both 200bird races. Todd Hitch shot a great 192 for open third place and junior runner-up to round out the Main Event podium.