Photo submitted by Rich Wolf: (From left to right) Front row: Rich Wolf. Back row: Gavin Owen, Dane Brietbarth, Bryan Ditzler, Owen Blaufuss, John Carr and Cole Nawrocki.

FAIRMONT – It was another fine finish to the season for head coach Rich Wolf and the Fairmont High School Trap Team.

After a consistent regular season and an at-large qualification in the Minnesota Trap Shooting Championships on June 21, the Cardinals later kept their momentum going in the MSHSL Clay Target State Tournament later that week, placing 6th of 40 total teams on Friday, June 26, in Prior Lake.

With a handful of weeks before postseason play began, Fairmont found itself in third place in the Class 7A Conference 2 standings, trailing just Buffalo and Melrose. Wolf said his team’s ability to stay consistent for the rest of the way is what allowed them to maintain this standing.

Fairmont shot a 5,825 and 6,731 in Weeks 4 and 5, respectively. These were some of the top total team performances the Cardinals had this spring season.

“The kids just kept working,” Wolf said. “They knew where they were at in the standings, and they wanted to stay there. So they just kept working and enjoyed it.”

Fairmont then turned its attention to the Minnesota Trap Shooting Championships in Alexandria. The top three placements in each section earned automatic qualification to the state tournament, a goal Wolf said he wanted to see the team reach.

While the Cardinals ultimately placed sixth in all of 7A – Forest Lake (484), Glencoe-Silver Lake (484), Lakeville South (480), Northern Freeze (479) and Prior Lake (479) – their final tally of 477 picked up one of the 13 at-large bids handed out to the highest scoring teams remaining.

John Carr led all individuals with a 97, while Dane Breitbarth and Cole Nawrocki each shot a 96 to carry Fairmont’s top three. Owen Blaufuss (95) and Bryan Ditzler (93) were the final two Cardinal qualification scores.

“Our mindset was that we wanted to qualify in the top three of the section,” Wolf said. “However, we didn’t do that. We shot a 477, which brought us up a little short. But we were able to get into [the state tournament] through an at-large bid and still qualified. That’s what our ultimate goal was. To qualify for the state finals in Prior Lake.”

“We did that in a little different fashion than what we were hoping for, but we still qualified. And then it’s a matter of just getting the right mindset and the right five guys together to pull it off and do what you could do.”

The energy certainly carried over. Fairmont responded to the quick turnaround with what Wolf called the team’s best shooting performance of the season. Shooting a team score of 481, the Cardinals placed sixth overall in the state competition, falling six points behind the state champion Bemidji (487).

Fairmont laced the scorecard with three 97s from Blaufuss, Breitbarth and Ditzler. Carr and Nawrocki closed the rotation with a pair of 95s, respectively.

“Once you get in and are qualified, that’s when it gets serious,” Wolf said. “Now we just have 100 birds left to shoot and the season’s over. 100 birds to shoot, then we go home. All we worked for all year long, the windy nights and miserable weather we shot in, it came down to this.”