By Patrick MacCoonRecord Sports EditorTwo new sports will debut this fall at Warrenton High School.With room for growth, the Warriors have added girls golf and coed target shooting as varsity sports.“We have a lot of students that are interested in hunting and doing those kind of things in a rural community like this,” Warrenton Athletic Director Bobby Spoonster said. “We also had enough interest to give the girls a chance to play golf against their own gender and play from the appropriate tees.”Warrenton will now have seven varsity sports in action during the fall.“We had an opportunity to get some other kids attached to something extracurricular that they might not have done otherwise,” Spoonster said. “We are excited to get started with both.”Coach Matt Griffin will also take over the reins of the girls golf team, which he expects to have around 8-10 roster members to be a part of.All practices and home matches for the girls golf team will be played at the Warrenton Golf Course.“It’s fun to be the coach of a program that’s just starting up because I get to gear it the way I want,” Griffin said. “We are focused on putting together a solid foundation first and foremost this year. Hopefully girls golf will garner some interest in the younger ages, so that they have something to look forward to playing once they get to high school.”Griffin expects the sport to be a fun learning experience for several newcomers, while serving as a great opportunity for girls who have played competitively before.“We have two girls coming in right away with experience and we are still looking to recruit others once school starts,” he said. “We are going to work hard and practice the fundamentals of golf first. You can’t just go out and play through nine holes and be good, you have to work at the basics one at a time first.”After several students expressed their enthusiasm for a target shooting team, the sport was brought to fruition and will be coached by Dan Burkemper and Christian Wenzel.In Missouri there are 188 schools that compete in the sport, with five target shooters allowed per school to play in each meet. Equipment will be provided by Warrenton and participants can also use their own if it meets the correct standards.“There were a lot of students that came to me excited about this sport,” Spoonster said. “The coaches are bought in and we are excited to have an opportunity for us to get the kids attached to another sport in the school.”Anywhere from around 10 to 15 students are expected to be kept on the roster this fall. Schedules for target shooting are still a work in progress.With two sports soon to make debuts, Warenton looks to ensure it starts out on the right foot with both.“The success for these two sports right away is for us to get both up and running right now,” Spoonster said. “We want to see the kids enjoy what they are doing. It’s a learning process for us all, especially with target shooting to figure out how it’s done and played. We want to see how we do this year and keep progressing through the years to come.”

Girls golf will have its first match on Aug. 31 against Liberty.