Young trapshooter wins national championship

Fourteen-year-old trapshooter R.J. Gropp of Berlin, the grandson of former Spencer resident Jim Gropp and his wife, Mary, recently became the first subjunior shooter from Wisconsin to win the Champion of Champions event at the 2020 Grand American World Trapshooting championship at the Missouri State Trapshooting Complex in Linn Creek, Mo.

R.J. qualified for the Champion of Champions event by winning the 2020 Wisconsin State sub-junior singles category with a score of 195 out of 200. The state shoot was held in Rome, with hundreds of shooters from Wisconsin and surrounding states competing.

At the Champions of Champions shoot, R.J. shot a perfect round of 100, but so did two others. The 3-way tie carried into the second day of competition, when R.J. shot another round of 100 but the other two shot 99s.

“Trap and Field,” the official Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) magazine, notified R.J. that its research of shooters confirmed he is the only sub-junior from Wisconsin to win the Champion of Champions title since it began in 1984.

R.J. is ranked fourth in the nation in the sub-junior category (ages 12-14) of AIM (Academics, Integrity, Marksmanship), the official youth program of the ATA.

At the AIM Grand Nationals singles championship at Linn Creek, he won the Class AAA singles title with a 197 score out of 200, and was named to the AIM 2021 All-Star Team sub-junior category and captain of the sub-junior 2021 Wisconsin all-state team.

R.J. also won the 2020 Wisconsin State High School singles Scholastic Clay Target Program title in Rome, with a perfect score of 100.

R.J. is a freshman at Berlin High School and shoots in the Kettle Moraine Trapshooting Conference-Northern Division, and with the Berlin Terminators, a youth group sponsored by the Berlin Conservation Club and others.

He is the son of Jeff and Kim Gropp of Berlin.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO