After the Whistle: Queen Anne’s Cole Coppage
CENTERVILLE, Md. – For the spring of 2022, Queen Anne’s County Public Schools approved the creation of a joint clay target shooting team split between Kent Island High School and Queen Anne’s County High School. Following a successful proof-of-concept season, the school board allowed the schools in 2023 to operate independent teams with full 20-student rosters.
The project of building a program from scratch was a challenging one. Head Coach Nathan Powell believes it’s been well worth the effort. “It’s been a very fulfilling project, probably one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done in in my lifetime,” Powell said. “Because we’ve had the ability to reach students who do not fit the tradition student-athlete mold.”
The rise of Queen Anne’s County High School’s clay target team was nothing short of meteoric. The Lions finished 22nd out of 264 teams at the 2025 USA High School Clay Target League National Championship, branding themselves as a top-25 program in just their third year of operation.
Their shooting in the team final featured more than one remarkable individual performance: Chris Jones and Cole Coppage both hit 100 targets straight for the first time in their competitive careers, helping QACHS to a program-best score of 484.
With the individual final later that day, Cole Coppage’s sparkling performance didn’t stop there.
When he tried out for the clay target team his freshman year, Coppage recalled feeling like he wasn’t anything special. “I’ve always been somebody that just kind of wants to be good at stuff. So it was another challenge, another new thing to try and get good at,” he said.
Coppage became obsessed with practicing and improving, to the point where he felt he had a chance to make a name for himself at the 2025 national championship: “Really, my goal was to do better than last year. Last year [in 2024] I placed 100th, which was really good–I thought it was really good–for being only my second year shooting.”
400 athletes qualify for the individual final from a field of over 1,500; Coppage barely made the cut, qualifying 395th. “I said it out loud. I said, ‘They made a mistake letting me back in here, because I’m going to I’m going to do some damage.'”
The close call had lit a fire under him, but–as Coppage tells it–staying even keeled was essential to his success. Describing his mindset in the moment, he said, “This is the most important target I’m going to shoot the whole day. And then once that one’s gone, then it’s the next one.”
After barely making it through individual qualifiers, Coppage recorded the first official 100-straight of his career in the team final. He then turned for the individual final and did it again.
He found himself in a shoot-off with 21 other athletes who had also recorded perfect scores. Coppage hit 25 more targets from the 16-yard mark; the field was down to 11. He hit 10 more from 20 yards; three sharpshooters, including Coppage, were left standing.
The three of them backed up to the 24-yard line in a sudden-death shoot-off, Coppage was the only one who remained perfect.
In just his third year in the sport, on a program in only its third season, Coppage was a national champion trap shooter.
Coppage knows most would expect him to bask in it, but he’s just worried about the next target: “It’s, like, probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. But at the same time, if I’m thinking about that every time I shoot now, I’m going to start missing.”
