COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado – Three local trap shooters returned home recently after being the first to represent the state of Connecticut at the National Junior Olympics in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Mat Apgar, 17, of Fairfield went to Colorado ranked 14th in the United States. CJ Ehrentraut, 11, of Beacon Falls was the youngest shooter in the field. And Michael Terry, 14, a sophomore from Weston, had earned the third slot on the team.

For two years, the boys have been active in the Scholastic Clay Target Program, sponsored by the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. This organization has more than 8,300 elementary and high school students across the country who compete on local, regional, and national levels in the disciplines of trap, Skeet, and sporting clay target shooting.

Last May the team set its sights on this national competition. With little practice in the challenging Olympic version of trap shooting, the boys soon went into their only previous international trap competition – the Connecticut Junior Olympics. All three placed as the top three guns and earned invitations to Colorado Springs.

The Junior Olympics are held under the auspices of USA Shooting, the governing body of shooting sports for the United States Olympic Committee. The winner at the Colorado Springs event gets a slot on the National Development Team – the stepping stone to the United States Olympic team.