HERMISTON — Hermiston high school senior Jesse Clark takes his stance at post No. 3 on the trap field at the Hermiston Gun Club. He waits for his chance.

When his time comes he pulls his Mossberg 835 shotgun into position and loudly yells, “Pull!”

The clay pigeon takes flight, Clark takes his aim and fires, and a shower of orange-painted shards crumbles to the ground.

Clark is one of 21 Hermiston students that are a part of the first-year high school trap shooting team, one of three schools in the state of Oregon that compete under the USA High School Clay Target League. The program was started by Hermiston Gun Club member John Adams, who saw the results of the Clay Target League following its start-up in the state of Minnesota and thought Oregon could develop a league with similar results.

“They started (the USA Clay Target League) about 10 years ago and over the course of those 10 years they’re up to almost 10,000 kids to shoot trap as a high school sport,” Adams said. “They’ve developed a scoring software and everything and it’s branched out 17 states now and it won’t be long until it’s in all 50.”

In total, the national league has more than 13,000 students from 446 different schools in those 17 states in 2016, which is an increase of 14 states and more than 3,700 students from the 2015 totals according to USAClayTarget.com.

Adams said those statistics and seeing the interest from students so far in Hermiston has him excited for the future of the sport.

“I’ve been involved in trap shooting for at least 20 years and it’s a sport that really has been on the decline,” Adams said. “I mean the average age of a trap shooter is an old retired guy that travels around in a motorhome around the country to shoot. This program has brought so many youth into the sport and has helped clubs bring in many more members.”

The idea to put together a team came to Adams last year, when he started to get into contact with the Clay Target League. Then in December of 2015, Adams inquired with Hermiston athletic director Blaine Ganvoa about having the school-sponsored team for the spring season, with the only roadblock being insurance.

“For us the biggest challenge was insurance for the school district,” Adams said. “The Clay Target League covers the students and the coaches, but the districts had to get their own coverage.”

After weeks of meetings with the school board and other school officials, Ganvoa gave Adams the go-ahead in February with full support from the school.

“Any time we can keep kids active is a good thing,” Ganvoa said.

Adams then went through various conference calls with other gun clubs in Oregon trying to gauge interest on starting a league in the state and at one time had 14 clubs with interest — however a lot of that interest hit a snag when it came to insurance.

Insurance was the main snag for other schools in Oregon as well. In the end only Echo and Oregon City joined into the Oregon State High School League.

Each of the three teams will compete in a nine-week schedule, with four practice weeks followed by five weeks of league events where the teams keep score. As of printing they are in their third week of competition with Hermiston leading the pack with 166 points, Echo in second with 92.5 and Oregon City with 83.5.

The season will conclude with a state championship shoot in Hillsboro on June 25, where any of the team’s shooters are eligible to compete.

The Hermiston program is primarily funded through grants awarded by the NRA, with the most recent award of nearly $23,000 going towards the purchase of two new traps and trap fields for the gun club, as well as all the targets and ammunition for the high school team.

Trapshooting is not necessarily new to Hermiston youth, as the 4-H program and Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) have been very popular for many years. The high school team — which is open to any interested students from grades 6-12 — features a mixture of experienced and first-year trap shooters, with Clark being one of the more inexperienced ones.

“This is actually my first year doing the sport,” he said. “My best friend Devon (Brittner) has been doing it since he was a kid and he got me involved … we actually had a party where we just came out here (to the gun club) and shot a bunch and that got me really into it.”

Other students, such as Hermiston freshman Case Hiatt, bring a few years of experience and plenty of success to the team. The 15-year-old Hiatt is in his fourth year of clay target shooting, and started in 4-H before moving on to ATA.

Most recently, Hiatt competed at the Camas Prairie Shoot at the Walla Walla Gun Club on March 18-20 and finished as the overall champion, earning a cool $1,400 check and numerous trophies.

So far, Adams has been very happy with the participation and success the team has had, but is excited to help it grow starting next school year.

“I anticipate this will grow significantly,” Adams said. “This year due to the insurance issue we weren’t able to really get into the high school and introduce the sport and get kids signed up. I know we left some behind but next year will be better, I expect two or three times the kids we have now.”

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Contact Eric Singer at esinger@eastoregonian.com or (541) 966-0839. Follow him on Twitter @ByEricSinger.