The Gatewood Gators shotgun team recently solidified its place among Georgia’s elite athletic programs, capturing its 10th state championship over the last 12 years.
This latest title came on Nov. 2 at Savannah’s historic Forest City Gun Club, where more than 700 competitors had gathered for the GIAA’s three-day clay target championship.
The Gatewood shotgun program’s success extends beyond championships, too.
The Eatonton-based school’s shotgun athletes have earned more college scholarships in the last dozen years than all other sports combined at Gatewood, with shooters continuing their scholastic and athletic careers at Clemson University, Emmanuel University, Midland University, the University of Alabama, and ABAC, among others.
The Gators’ season, which began in August, demands discipline, consistency, and commitment from students and coaches alike. The team practices twice a week at Old Hudson Plantation in Sparta and Burnt Pine Plantation in Newborn, then spends most Saturdays traveling across the state to compete in qualifying events.
Gatewood fields both middle school and varsity teams, with eligibility beginning as early as fifth grade for middle school students and eighth grade for varsity shooters.
This year’s Gatewood varsity roster included a broad mix of experience and promising young talent, including seniors Sawyer Adkinson, Carson Courchaine, Bryson Elwer, Lake Ferman, Carson Fried, and Carson Huffer, with juniors Parker Holle, Will Rainey, and Wyatt Wojtas.
Sophomores Jack Davis, Carson Lingle, Ford Rocker, and JP Weems added valuable depth to the team, while freshmen Colton Cheek, Easton Fried, Levi Hayslip, Hunter Pierce, and Peyton Traylor, along with eighth-grader Robert Adkinson, represent the program’s future.
Freshman student Lilly Kent Rainey was the lone girl on the Gatewood roster.
The program is led entirely by a volunteer staff of dedicated fathers, including head coach Jacob Fried, with Jason Cheek, Kevin Courchaine, Keith Davis, Jake Hill, Rich Lingle, Brandon Pierce, Walt Rocker, and John Wojtas.
The state championship tests each shooter across three disciplines: skeet, trap, and sporting clays, with each worth up to 100 points for a maximum individual score of 300. The team title is determined by the combined scores of the top three shooters in each division.
This year, Gatewood shooters delivered a dominant performance in securing the overall state title. Elwer posted 284 points, followed closely by fellow senior Courchaine with 282, and 277 points by Lingle for a combined score of 843 out of a possible 900 points. That placed Gatewood an impressive 73 targets ahead of runner-up Flint River Academy, a margin rarely seen at this level of competition.
Elwer’s performance also earned him the High Overall Shooter title, awarded to the single top competitor in the state.
The GIAA also names the top 15 shooters in Georgia as All-State athletes, with an unprecedented 10 of those selections coming from Gatewood this year, more than from any other school in GIAA history. The list included Cheek, Courchaine, Davis, Elwer, Fried, Holle, Lingle, Rainey, Rocker, and Wojtas, underscoring the program's depth and breadth of talent.
Individual event results further demonstrated Gatewood’s dominance. In sporting clays, Courchaine claimed first with a 95, followed by Elwer in fourth, and Lingle in fifth place. Elwer won skeet with a near-perfect 98, while Lingle, Wojtas, and Courchaine rounded out the top five. Elwer added another first-place finish in trap, with Holle taking fifth.
Kent Rainey also delivered an impressive performance at the state finals, winning the girls’ skeet title and placing second in sporting clays and trap shooting.
“It was an amazing time and experience,” head coach Fried said a couple of weeks after the Forest City finals. “We’re all so impressed and so proud of these kids. It was an amazing experience for everyone who went there.”