U.S. Trap Team Takes Silver

The United States Men's Trap Team took Silver on the second day of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship in Changwon, South Korea. The Junior Women's Trap Team also medaled, grabbing the bronze.

Team medals are based on the combined scores of the three athletes from a given country competing in a specific event. The last time the United States won a Men’s Trap team medal was in 2006 when Lance Bade, Brett Erickson and Matthew Wallace won team bronze in 2006. Erickson also won an individual bronze medal in Men’s Trap that year too.

Former Double Trap specialist and 2008 Olympic gold medalist Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas/U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit) was the top finisher in Men’s Trap Qualification with a score of 123 of 125 targets. Eller made his international debut in Trap this year on the ISSF World Cup circuit once his signature event was eliminated. Eller’s highest finish prior to today in Men’s Trap was 15th place at the World Cup in Malta.

Eller, however, was the first athlete eliminated in the Final, hitting 17 of 25 targets to finish in sixth place. Eller’s finish marks only the second time a Men’s Trap athlete has qualified for a World Championship Final since 2006. His USAMU teammate, Derek Haldeman, finished in fifth place at last year’s Shotgun World Championship in Moscow, Russia.

Seventeen-year-old Grayson Davey (Anchorage, Alaska) finished in eighteenth place in his World Championship debut, hitting 120 targets. Jake Wallace (Castaic, California) finished in 40th place with a score of 117. Jake Wallace will compete again at this World Championship on September 7 in the Trap Mixed Team event with his teammate, two-time Olympic bronze medalist Corey Cogdell-Unrein (Eagle River, Alaska). Wallace and Cogdell-Unrein won gold at the most recent World Cup in Tucson, Arizona.

With two of the three Junior Women’s Trap team members making their international competition debut at this World Championship, a team bronze medal is a nice souvenir for team members Emma Williams (Savannah, Tennessee), National Junior Champion and National Junior Olympic Champion Carey Garrison (Crossville, Tennessee) and Madelynn Bernau (Waterford, Wisconsin).

Williams finished just two targets out of a potential finish in the Finals, breakings 113 of 125 to earn her highest World Championship finish to date, ninth place, besting her tenth place finish at last year’s Shotgun World Championship in Russia. Garrison, 13, followed her in tenth place, with a score of 112. Bernau finished in twenty-fifth place with a score of 101.