2018 Nebraska One Box Rock Crushers USAYESS National Championship Results:
The Nebraska One Box Rock Crushers shotgun team traveled to San Antonio, Texas June 29 through July 1 to compete in the 2018 USAYESS National Championships. They returned to San Antonio
this year after winning the 2016 National Championship team title and finishing as Runner-up IN 2017.
As with the previous two years, the 2018 National Championship race came down to a battle between
the One Box Rock Crushers and the Elm Fork Select team from Dallas, Texas. Although the team race
was closer this year, the Rock Crushers again finished as Runner-up in the High Overall team competition to the National Champion Elm Fork team by a narrow margin of just 29, breaking 1,614 out of a possible 1,750 clay targets. The High Overall team competition takes the top five scores from each team in trap (100 targets), skeet (100), sporting clays (100) and 5 Stand (50).
In each of the four team High Overall events, the Rock Crushers fared well, taking the Silver in
Skeet, 5 Stand and Sporting Clays and the Gold in Trap.
This year marked the fifteenth year of the Rock Crushers competing on a national level under
the coaching of Dave Stunkel and found competition from a total of 24 teams from across the country,
including Nebraska , Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, Arkansas, Washington, Nevada and Texas.
This year, the Intermediate squad of Cody Nelson, Zach Smith, Lucas Bell, Jacob Uphoff and John
Leiting “swept the table” and claimed the national champion honors in all four competitions for their
age group, taking the top spot in skeet, sporting clays, 5 stand and trap. The Junior Varsity squad was
one Gold Medal short of matching the Intermediates’ performance with Cort West, Leighton Webb,
Travis Woodward, Kade Safranek and Josh McFate winning all their events except the sporting clays
competition, in which they finished in second place and the Silver Medal. The Varsity team of Ethan
Bazyn, Gus Dunbar, Trey Nelson, Max Werner, Riley Racicky and Grant Reynolds faced stiff competition
going head-to-head with the Elm Fork team, but was able to take top honors in the trap competition,
dropping only 36 of their 500 targets for a Trap score of 464.
A major achievement of the team at this year’s national competition was the Rock Crushers
winning all three age groups in the trap competition and garnering three national titles in that categoryin the process. In the High Overall Category, which takes the top five scores on the team from all age groups, the Rock Crushers also repeated as National Champions in trap, breaking 480 out of a possible 500 to take the top spot by nine targets over the second place team from Elm Fork.
As would be expected, there were numerous individual performances that laid the foundation
for the team’s success. In the Intermediate age category, Jacob Uphoff dominated the Intermediate age
group, taking top individual awards in each of his events, which included International Skeet,
International Trap, 5-Stand, American Skeet and American Trap. Also in the Intermediate group, Zach
Smith tied for the Bronze in 5 Stand but lost the tie breaker shoot-off. On the Junior Varsity squad,
Leighton Webb took home the Gold Medal in International Trap, the silver medal in 5 Stand, and
the Bronze medal in American Trap. Cort West won a shoot-off with Webb to take gold in 5 stand. On the Varsity level, Gus Dunbar took second place and the Silver Medal in International Trap.
The USAYESS National Championship competition capped off another successful year for the
Nebraska One Box Rock Crushers. In addition to their success at Nationals, the team also repeated as
the USAYESS Nebraska State Champions, and finished second at the USAYESS Northeast Regionals, with
numerous other individual and squad victories at those competitions.
