Soddy-Daisy High School shooting team member Sheldon Rodgers fires his shotgun at a clay target at Montlake Classic Clays in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn. on Wednesday.Less than four years ago, Sheldon Rodgers had never fired a gun at a target. Two weeks ago in Nashville, he led Soddy-Daisy High School to the state sporting clays championship by hitting 97 flying discs out of 100 from a series of 15 stations.
Rodgers was the tournament’s high overall scorer and the all-state captain for sporting clays — a distinction that includes academic success as well as shotgun prowess — while teammate Paxton Pelfrey was the all-state captain for skeet. Blake Dunn, the third member of the state champion team, was the individual skeet winner the next day with a 99, after Austin Gravitt won the individual clays title with a 93.
All four will be back for another year, while junior varsity individual clays champion Cody Hedgecoth and fellow JV state runners-up Dakota Davis and Erica Dunn each has three more years of high school. Erica, Blake’s sister, was the top JV female individual in skeet, the clays runner-up and a member of the girls’ varsity all-state team.
“When we got there, there were dozens of teams from around Nashville and West Tennessee and farther up East Tennessee,” said Trevor Fuller, the English teacher who coaches the Soddy-Daisy shooters with help from former skeet world champion Mike Gray and sporting-clays specialist Craig Sheaffer, who owns Montlake Classic Clays with his wife, Dawn.
“We were paired with the defending state champs [Jefferson County], but they found out real quick that we came ready to shoot.”