SPORTS SHORT
Shotgun team finishes inaugural season
In its inaugural season, squads from the MIT Sporting Clays Association took fourth and fifth place at the New England Clay Cup on April 16. Shooters from MIT competed in trap, a shotgun shooting discipline in which small clay discs flying away from the shooter at 30 mph are targeted 30–40 yards downrange. Hitting the target requires identifying its trajectory, correcting for lead, aiming, and firing within 1° accuracy — all within a second. Cumulative scores are tabulated from four rounds of 25 targets.
Despite cold and windy conditions on the day of the tournament, MIT shooters excelled. Overall, MIT lead the pack of Boston area schools, beating squads from Harvard, Northeastern, and Tufts. Squads from Yale and Vermont took the first three spots overall in the tournament. Individually, Thomas M. Cervantes ’11 placed third in the men’s division, hitting 90/100 targets, while Elaina T. Chai ’12 placed fourth in women’s with a score of 74/100.
The Clay Cup concludes MIT’s first season, and with one year under its belt, the club is looking forward to shoots with Vermont and Army next year and more broken targets downrange.
—Charles Lin, Team Representative