Monticello’s Lance Klersy, for perfection at state, is the high school Clay Target Shooter of the Year

Lance Klersy knew the feeling of perfection, but he hadn’t felt it for a good long while.

So when perfection persisted at the high school clay target shooting state championships Friday at Minneapolis Gun Club in Prior Lake, he didn’t take it lightly.

“My last box, I could barely put my shells in my gun, I was shaking so much,” he said.

That last box went perfectly, too, and Klersy, a junior at Monticello, won the state championship — and more. He’s the Star Tribune’s Metro Clay Target Shooter of the Year.

Klersy was one of two boys, out of 91, to post perfect scores, downing 100 targets in 100 tries, so he shared the state title with Alden-Conger’s Ross Huper.

Klersy cited coaching for his success, and he started the list with his father, Joe, head coach of Monticello’s shooting team, and his mother, Tracy, also involved with the team. He works with Mike Michaelis of the Monticello Sportsmen Club; Michaelis is about to be inducted into the Minnesota Trapshooting Hall of Fame. Tammy Baloun, long involved with the high school trapshooting team, gets credit from Klersy, too. It doesn’t hurt that Klersy has worked at the Sportsmen Club for about five years.

Klersy said he’d posted a perfect score one other time, two years ago at a youth state shoot. He knew early Friday that he was locked in.

“Normally I shoot really good at first and then I start to slow down a little bit, but on Friday I shot my first two boxes and felt really good about it,” said Klersy, who finished 13th in the state championships as a sophomore.

Klersy wasn’t far from his norm when he went 100-for-100. During the Minnesota High School Clay Target League season, he hit an average of 24 targets out of 25. The Clay Target League partners with the Minnesota State High School League to present the state tournament.