Westside Warms Up, Returns to Top Spot in Shooting Sports Final

Danny Price was feeling a little deja vu early in the Youth Shooting Sports senior state championship. The Jonesboro Westside coach watched his No. 4 Warriors Red squad start out poorly, by its standards, missing 13 of 125 targets and barely eking by in the first round of the 64-team tournament Saturday at the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation Shooting Sports Complex in Jacksonville. It was very similar to the way things started two years ago, when Westside started cold but was a roaring furnace by the final in winning a state championship.

To Price’s delight, this year’s squad, which returned senior Sam Sloan from the 2024 title team, followed the same path, saving its best for when it needed it most. Westside hit 123 out of 125 clay targets both in a tight quarterfinal to eliminate defending state champion Bald Knob, and then again in the final versus a surprising Ashdown team, which had also missed just two of 125 shots to shock Corning in the semifinals. The championship was Westside’s fourth overall state title in 19 years of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s YSS program.

By the final, its sixth match of the day, the Westside Warriors No. 4 team’s entire attitude had switched completely around from its first-round struggles. Along the way, they also survived a 120-all tie with Highland in the round of 16, decided by the scorecard with a better individual score. By the final, it didn’t look like Westside could miss and was six targets better than Ashdown.

“We practice hard, we focus on what we’re doing wrong and try to correct it,” Price said. “We just try to do better every time. We preach, ‘You miss one, don’t worry about it. Figure out what you did and just get the next one.’”

Samuel Sloan and Corbit Hiser are this five-man team’s only seniors, and both were a perfect 25-for-25 in the final. The other squad members are Taylin Qualls, who also was perfect in the final, and Rowan Roberts and Austin Statler, who each missed just one clay.

Hiser also qualified for the senior division Champion of Champions shoot-off that followed the tournament and went deep in that competition. Hiser was among an amazing 26 shooters from the four senior regionals who hit all 50 attempts to reach Saturday’s shoot-off. It was such a large field, YSS organizers split the bunch into two flights, whittling down the competition to seven shooters at 23 yards (it starts at 16) before reconvening the survivors on the No. 7 showcase field.

The day’s thrills didn’t stop. It took two runs over the 27-yard mark before Eli Norton of Jonesboro Trap and Houston Clark from Southside Batesville had run out of concrete and still had not missed. So they backed into the grass at 29 yards, where Clark missed his first attempt. Norton, a high school sophomore, didn’t.

Norton pocketed $2,500 in college scholarship money with the Champion of Champions title.

Norton said he thought, “Oh my goodness,” when Clark’s shot went awry.

“I never even shoot from that distance,” Norton said. “The only reason I knew how to do that and shoot from the 27 (yards) is Coach Shane (Bray) and all the coaches helped me and pushed us all the way back, and we were able to practice for this.”

Norton didn’t want to leave the complex after awards were being handed out without later adding, “I want to thank coach Steve Wilson. He was the biggest help and the best coach I’ve had. I just love him so much. Even though he’s not my parent, I love him like a father.”

Bray, who has led Jonesboro Trap for a decade and choked up when expressing his excitement at seeing Norton win, said his squad practiced for two weeks straight, and it seemed to be paying off with near-perfect shooting until a semifinal loss to neighbor Westside Red 4, when their score tumbled. “We shanked it around there,” Bray said. “But we came right back.” In the third-place matchup, Jonesboro bettered another rival and East regional champ Corning 123-122. Corning, upset in the semifinal when Ashdown hit a scorching 123 clays, had set what most observers of the YSS program believed was a regional scoring mark in winning the East with a 244 (out of 250) score. Jonesboro had totaled 238 in the same regional, good enough to win most tournaments any other year, and Westside’s Nos. 4 and 3 squads tied with 237. The Westside No. 3 team reached the quarterfinals on Saturday before bowing to Corning by one clay.

Which begged the question: Where were Westside’s 1 and 2 teams?

“I switch the numbers around,” Price said. “Every school has it the other way around and I just did it different this year.” There are other Westside teams, to be sure, however. Price says he works with around 29 kids on his senior division squads, and he has about 47 total in the program. A local family has donated land near Westside’s schools where the shooters can practice.

Jonesboro, meanwhile, is a regular user of the Jonesboro Shooting Sports Complex, which was built by the city with help from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
“It’s a great facility. We just need more people to come out and know more about it,” Bray said.

Jonesboro’s squad picked up $2,500 in scholarship money. Ashdown won $5,000 for second place. Westside’s No. 4 squad will share $7,500 in money for college scholarships. Sam Sloan says he’s already been shooting with former Westside shooters who are at Arkansas State and plans to stay involved with shooting sports on the college level. Meanwhile, fellow senior Hiser said he was thrilled to have a championship; he wasn’t part of the winning Westside fivesome in 2024.

“I’ve been shooting for six years and never won,” he said, beaming, before heading to the shoot-off.

In Friday’s junior high state tournament, which started off a thrilling weekend at Jacksonville, the Shiloh Christian School Reapers captured the state championship with a one-clay win over Jonesboro Gray, 117-116. Mountain Home Bomb Squad took third place over Smackover. The junior semifinals were indicative of the overall closeness throughout the YSS tournaments this year and the improved shooting seen in both divisions, as Jonesboro Gray nipped Mountain Home 112-111 and Shiloh eased by Smackover 114-112. Shiloh team members were Luke Ferguson, Andrew Karr, Christian French, Walker Allen and Austin Bierman.

Dierks’ Henry Semmler survived a seven-person shoot-off to win the juniors’ Champion of Champions title.

CUTLINES:

SHOOTOFF
Jonesboro’s Eli Norton hits the winning clay in the senior Champion of Champions shoot-off as Southside (Batesville) Shooters’ Houston Clark and the AGFC’s Trent Whitehead look on.

COACHING MOMENT
Westside coach Danny Price greets his squad after they hit 123 of 125 shots in the final vs. Ashdown.

BIG CHECK
Jonesboro high school sophomore Eli Norton enjoys his winnings as senior Champion of Champions with AGFC chairman Anne Marie Doramus (from left), commissioner Jamie Anderson and YSS coordinator Steven Johnson.

ON THE FIRING LINE
Christian French and the Shiloh Christian School Reapers outlasted the competition in the YSS Junior State Championship on Friday at Jacksonville.

HANDSHAKE
Dierks’ Henry Semmler accepts his prize and congratulations from YSS coordinator Steven Johnson after winning the junior Champion of Champions shoot-off.