Photo: Members of the Magnolia Heights School Shooting Team at the state meet. From left-Hunter Criswell, Hayden Harris, Samuel Allison, Hayes Savage, Bryce Thornton, Lex Davidson. (courtesy photo)
March 22, 2025 – School extracurricular programs and teams continually are striving to be the best at their sport or activity. We celebrate state championships in baseball, basketball and other events.
Recently, Magnolia Heights School celebrated a championship in something we don’t typically hear much about. The Chiefs’ shooting team came back with a group Sporting Clays state championship.
The championships were held at the Turcotte Shooting Range in Canton. Both public and private schools compete for the title, which is sanctioned by the Mississippi Scholastic Shooting Program, affiliated with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.
What makes a sporting clays shooter a successful marksman? Members of the Magnolia Heights team spoke about consistency, patience, and practice.
“Consistency for sure,” said freshman Hayden Harris. “You can’t take one target for granted, you’ve got to stay focused the entire time, and practice. Practice, practice, practice.”
“You need to be disciplined, have good hand-eye coordination, be patient and follow instructions,” Coach Clint Townsend added.
Townsend said the team practices extensively and will shoot around 250 rounds a week at the DeSoto Rifle and Pistol Club near Como and also at a range near Sardis.
At the state meet, shooters are given two rounds of shooting 100 targets with the most targets hit amounting to your score.
“A squad is made up of three shooters and we qualified two teams for state,” Townsend said. “On the state squad championship, which we won, we had two high schoolers and one from junior high on the team.”
There are a number of reasons why sporting clays became the sport of choice for these Chiefs.
“I’ve never really got into actual sports but I’ve always been a big hunter, duck hunter and whatnot,” said freshman Samuel Allison. “It was my dad who told me they started a shooting team when I was in seventh grade. It’s a good environment and I love it.”
Allison said there’s a specific approach to competitive shooting he takes.
“As soon as you walk up to the station you get to see where the clays are coming from, which way they go and how fast,” Allison said. “You make your plan of where you want to go to start your gun, where you want to start your eyes, your movement and the line of the target and all that.”
Harris said he is glad he’s able to compete with others who he knows well.
“My friends are into it and that kind of keeps me in it,” Harris said. “It’s good to have somebody to compete with all of the time,” adding he started in eighth grade on the urging of Allison to join him.
Freshman Hayes Savage enjoys sporting clays because it keeps him outside, where he likes to be.
From left, Lex Davidson, Hayes Savage, Samuel Allison, and Hayden Harris. (Bob Bakken/desotocountynews.com)
“I started in my seventh grade year and I’ve always been outside and doing stuff,” Savage said. “I found out they have this program, I’ve always liked shooting skeet before that and my friends did it, so I joined.”
Savage said when he’s not out hunting he’s skeet shooting, so he’s near a gun much of the time.
Junior Lex Davidson also likes being involved in the outdoors with sporting clays.
“You get to open up new avenues and opportunities and it’s just great to make friends out there that do the same thing you do and have the same mindset,” Davidson said. “I usually shoot year-round besides when I am hunting.”
Davidson, who said he played tennis before joining the shooting team, said the hand-eye coordination he used in tennis also comes into play with sporting clays.
Magnolia Heights outscored East Rankin at the state meet 534-528. Two other East Rankin teams followed with Park Place Academy was fifth. Complete results are found here.
Scholarship money is also available to the top shooters in the competition, such as Hunter Criswell, who earned $1,700 in scholarship money for finishing second overall. Teammates Harris and Allison also won scholarship money at the state meet.
Another area where the team has been sharpshooters at is in the classroom, where Head of School Cliff Johnston said the team is averaging a 2.9 grade point average.
“It’s been great for our kids to be able to compete and it gives them another extracurricular activity to participate and represent our school,” Johnston said. “They do a great job with it and Clint has done a good job leading the program.”
