WALLOWA — Five members of the Wallowa High School Trap Shooting Team traveled to compete in the USA Clay Target League championships in Mason, Michigan, earlier this month and brought home accolades for their performance there.

And a team from Oregon team won first place, said Colby Knifong, who with her husband, Kent, coaches the Wallowa team.

The Yamhill-Carlton High School team shot best in the nation, the first time an Oregon school won a national championship. The team came out ahead of 259 other high school clay target teams with a score of 487 out of 500.

“It was pretty amazing,” Colby Knifong said. “They helped us a lot.”

She said the five members of the Wallowa team who went to nationals had qualified at the state competition in June for the Michigan trip to compete against 1,795 shooters.

Making the trip were recent Wallowa High School graduate Kellan Knifong — the coaches’ son — and incoming seniors Cash Tanzey and Liam Wolfe, incoming sophomore Elijah Parker and incoming freshman Kyler Lowe.

At state, Knifong earned a $1,000 scholarship through the USA Clay Target League to shoot trap at Southeastern Illinois College in Harrisburg, Illinois.

“There’s lots of money if you’re wanting to shoot trap for college,” his mom said.

Parker earned a $25 gift certificate in the Annie Oakley Round, in which the last three shooters — Parker, Tanzey and Wolfe — were Wallowa members.

Their scores at nationals weren’t the top, but they were certainly respectable.

“We represented our county very well,” coach Knifong said.

In the semifinal round Saturday, July 13, three of the Wallowa shooters qualified to shoot in Sunday’s championship round.

Of the 1,795 shooters on Saturday, Liam shot 89 out of 100, Cash shot 97 and Kellan shot 98. Knifong said there were 13 shooters who shot perfect 100s.

That qualified Cash and Kellan for Sunday’s round, where Cash shot 97 and Kellan shot 92.

“It’s amazing to make national finals,” the coach said.

The team started with a total of 23 shooters — 18 boys and five girls. Several were first-year team members.

“We have a very young team this year,” Knifong said.

She’d like to be able to include other youths from throughout the county. In fact, Wallowa received a grant from the National Rifle Association to do just that — $6,200 to pay for ammunition. However, she said, that wouldn’t be enough to cover the cost of ammo for youths from Enterprise, Joseph and home-schoolers that would be required under conditions of the grant, so Wallowa had to pass. She said a dozen or so youths from other schools expressed interest in joining the Wallowa team.

Knifong noted that she appreciates the support of the Wallowa County community, as well as that of the NRA.

She said a city near Portland dropped its trap team “because they used guns. We’re very glad our community is supportive.”

In fact, she said, trap shooting has proven to be quite safe.

“It’s one to the best things you can do because it teaches gun safety,” she said. “It’s one of the safest sports there is. We have almost 2,000 kids (at nationals) with guns and not a single injury.”