BP’s Lea wins trap conference title

Blooming Prairie's junior Madi Lea secured the 4A Conference 5 girls trap shooting title last week after finishing her regular season averaging 22.6 targets hit per match.

The junior has been lights out for the Blossoms all season long and contributed to the Blossoms taking fourth in the conference as a team this season.

“It’s insane. I started in seventh grade and as you could maybe imagine, I was probably one of the worst shooters on our team,” said Lea. “So I always looked up to the people on my team that could shoot perfect 25s or upper 20s. It’s surreal to me to now be one of those people shooting in the upper 20s and winning conference championships. I could’ve never imagined it.”

Lea credited her love for trap shooting to her father, Kent, and brother, Alex, whose love for the sport sparked her interest to begin shooting in the seventh grade.

“My dad and brother have always been super into trapshooting so when it came up in the school announcements, I decided that I would try it for a year and I ended up absolutely loving it.”

Lea’s run to the 4A Conference 5 title came after the junior put up a mark of 22.6 targets hit per 25 shots over the course of the regular season.

In trapshooting, each team will have members of its squad partake two in 25-shot rounds where clay pigeons are sent into the air at random distances and angles with shooters being tasked with hitting the targets out of the sky.

Lea’s consistent figure of 22.6 relates to her round totals and comes in at a near-perfect 90.4% accuracy rate.

“My dad has been my main coach and has always told me, you know, ‘Get in the right mindset and have fun with it. Take your time, find the clay and shoot whenever you’re ready.’ So yeah, I just try and get into that right mindset before I shoot.”

The strategy has paid off for Lea, whose mark of 22.6 was 0.6 points higher than the second-place score and exactly 1.5 points higher than the third-place score.

In a sport where accuracy is everything, Lea’s margin of victory stands out more than one may initially expect as her mark of 90.4% was comfortably higher than second-place’s mark of 88% and third-place’s 84.4%.

However, Lea is not finished accomplishing this season’s goals quite yet.

The junior is hoping to compete and collect another top finish at the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League Trap Shooting Championships on Thursday, June 16.

After being ranked No. 3 overall in the conference, Lea will enter the state tournament with realistic hopes of winning a state title and working towards competing at the national level as well.