The Elkin High School Shooting Team traveled to Ellerbe, N.C. to compete in the 2013 Youth Hunter Education Skills Tournament, the pre-collegiate shooting sports state championship.
The event was held Saturday by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission at Millstone 4-H Center in Richmond County.
Youth from all over the state competed in team and individual categories for rifle, shotgun, archery and orienteering with overall team and individual awards based on aggregate scores in all events.
There were 575 students from 55 schools participating in this year’s tournament, having advanced from nine district events across the state where there was combined participation by more than 2,700 students from 271 schools.
The Elks, competing in their third state tournament in four years, found early success on the archery range.
Seniors “The” Austin Wood and Carson “Bull’s-eye” Billings both shot a perfect 200 score with Wood landing 6 bulls eyes and Billings hitting 11 out of 20.
Billings’ effort solidified his position atop the field and even before the morning dew was dry Elkin had won their first ever state title in any shooting event when Billings claimed his title as state archery champion.
The dominating performance of Billings and Wood - in addition to the strong showing from Senior Andrew Combs, Sophomores Tristan Grubbs and Noah Smith, and Freshman Hunter Simmons - helped the Archery team land a second place finish overall in the team archery event, only four points away from a first place finish.
In arguably the most popular event of the tournament, the trap shooting event, Senior Austin Wood and Sophomore Noah Smith busted their way to a perfect 200 score, hitting all 20 skeet and advancing to the elimination round.
The Elkin Shooting team would like to specifically thank Dale Rose of Carl Rose and Son Paving for the continued support.



















