The University of Central Missouri’s Trap and Skeet team offers students the opportunity to sharpen their marksmanship skills while building camaraderie through two of the nation’s most popular shotgun sports. With a dedicated range east of Warrensburg and a $78,000 endowed scholarship supporting its members, the UCM’s Trap and Skeet team continues to expand opportunities for students interested in shooting sports.
“A typical day for practice is when we all come out. People buy their shotgun shells from the team if they need them. And then we all kind of split up whether you want to shoot trap or skeet, and we’ll go, kind of get a couple rounds of practice in, hang out, have fun, but it’s all about improving your skills day to day,” said senior Allison Gross, the team’s treasurer.
The University of Central Missouri’s Trap and Skeet team is open to all students and practices shooting sports together multiple times a week. Trap and skeet are two distinct, popular shotgun sports that involve shooting at moving clay targets. The team practices at the Trap and Skeet Range, which was built 20 years ago and is located at 454 E. Division Rd in Warrensburg.
“The facility used to be housed under a different division in the university, and then farms took it over in 2023 and since 2023 we’ve had a $78,000 Endowed Scholarship dedicated to shooting sports members,” Director of Farms Travis Hume said.
The Trap and Skeet team competes against other universities, such as Columbia College, Drury University, and Lindenwood University. According to the vice president of the team, senior Dan Vehige, trap shooting requires mental focus and consistency, with high-level competitions being highly stressful.
“It becomes more of a test of your mental ability, your ability to focus and to maintain consistency for hours and hours and hundreds and hundreds of shots over and over again. Because in a competition, if you miss one target out of 100, you already lost. It’s a highly competitive, highly competitive sport,” Vehige said.
Most current members of the sport have stated that they had grown up with the sport at home or learned about it on campus. Senior and president Lilly Dunn of UCM shotgun sports had never used a shotgun before coming to UCM. Dunn lived on campus freshman year and decided to get involved with extracurricular activities.
“I didn’t even know that Trap and Skeet was a thing. I grew up with rifles and pistols but never shot a shotgun,” Dunn said. “I went to the Involvement Fair in the fall of my freshman year and came across Trap and Skeet, and I said, ‘that’s something new.’ I’ve fallen in love with it since.”
The team is an organization that, according to Dunn, allows students to have a fun experience, but keeps safety as their main priority.
“We have people that are watching while we’re practicing, when the range is open, there are safety officers on site that have been taught how to, so anybody new on the range, they’re going to tell you the basics,” said Hume.
According to Dunn, the team works together to have a safe and fun experience.
“As President, we actually work. We have a whole team of officers, so it’s me, and vice president Dan Vehige, a treasurer and a secretary. We work all together, planning events, planning practices. A few of the officers will go to either Trap or Skeet, and we will either work on a specific target or any kind of form, just doing our best to help them with that. And mostly it’s just repetition,” Dunn said.
