USA High School Clay Target League


The USA High School Clay Target League is a 501 non-profit corporation and the independent provider of shooting sports as an extracurricular co-ed activity to high schools for students in grades six through twelve who have their firearms safety certification. The organization oversees high school trapshooting and skeet shooting leagues in 20+ states.
The USA High School Clay Target League is the largest youth clay target shooting program in the world, with over 32,000 participants yearly. The USAHSCTL runs high-school trapshooting leagues in various states nationwide, the largest of which is Minnesota, where 12,000 students from nearly 450 schools compete. All teams in USAHSCTL leagues are school-sanctioned as a prerequisite for team/league formation. The Minnesota State High School Clay Target League Championship is the largest trapshooting event in the world with over 8,000 student athletes participating in 2018.
The League's motto is "Safety, Fun, Marksmanship - In that order."

League Format

Five students is the minimum number for a team. There is no maximum number of students that can be on a team. There may be some limitations to team size because of coaching resources and/or gun club capacity. Teams are made up of students from 6th grade through 12th grade. Middle school students are eligible to participate with high school kids if the team size allows for it
Each team competes in their own conference with teams of similar team member size. A true team scoring system is used and a team competes against all teams within their conference each week. The highest total of points achieved by the team at the end of the competition is the winner.

Growth

While the first years of the league were limited to just a handful of teams in Minnesota. It is now one of the largest sports in Minnesota High Schools.

Official Recognition

On December 7, 2012 the Minnesota State High School League approved a sanctioned, presenting partner, trapshooting State Tournament. The first tournament was held at the Minneapolis Gun Club in Prior Lake on June 14, 2014. This meant that trap shooting had been recognized the same as all other high school sports, and Minnesota became the first and only state high school athletic association to host a trapshooting tournament. The League operates and abides by similar rules as the Minnesota State High School League.

Media Attention

Little media attention was given to the league's efforts until the Minneapolis StarTribune wrote a piece about the efforts to get shooting sports into Minnesota schools.
More recently, Bloomberg wrote about the league's expansion, noting that nearly 10,000 high school students were now taking part.