Sibley East finishes third in first national championship appearance

GAYLORD, Minn. (KEYC) - Sibley East is just one of many schools that were featured in the USA High School Clay Target League National Championship, but coach Andy Hengel believes his group is something special.

“They all qualified through the individual process to their scores. We decided to form a team together when the option came out and the eligibility came out. All five decided that they wanted to shoot because they’re a fairly close group that shoots on the weekends together and their practices, and the question came up and they all gave the green light and the thumbs up, so we said, as parents, that if they want to do it, we’re going to allow them the opportunity,” said Hengel.

It’s a humbling experience competing on the big stage, with 230 teams across the country gunning for national recognition.

“It’s amazing,” Hengel added. “I mean, the presence you feel when you arrive there, you feel you’re on a national stage and even on the stage shoots and the local shoots, there’s a lot of competition and a lot of pressure and it’s a big area to cover for all these teams when you get to the nationals. You can kind of feel that cloud that looks over these kids going ‘we’re at the big stage,’” Hengel stated.

Sibley East senior shooters Joseph Mueller and Hunter Leighton said their approach to drowning out the noise was to stay loose and lean on each other.

“Well for us, we like to joke around, we like to mess around a little bit. We like to not take it as seriously as we should because if we take it seriously, then we’ll get anxious and perform bad. So we try to be like one big family, as he was saying, and joke around and just be like goofballs together,” said Joseph Mueller.

With team chemistry, comes player roles.

“For me, I was the team captain this year, but I was also cracking the jokes most of the time. I would sit there and do Gangnam Style,” said Leighton. “I was kind of the dad of the group. I made sure everyone had their things, everyone was getting up to the line on time, basically just making sure they were behaving and stuff,” Joseph Mueller stated.

That approach paid off when the team saw their names near the top of the leaderboard.

“I really didn’t think these kids were going to do this good. They wanted to go out, and I remember them telling me they wanted to experience going to a national event and with that being said they pulled it together. You know I’ve known these kids since they’ve started the programs. One of our shooters started when she was in sixth grade and they just click,” said Kenny Mueller.

Kenny Mueller, who is the longest-tenured coach in Wolverines history, is proud of the team’s top-three finish, but still believes Sibley East can do more to make a name for themselves.

“We still have something to prove because we have such young kids that are in this program,” stated Kenny Mueller.

This year’s success in the national championship will help pave the way for the younger classes.

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