SEWARD, Neb. – The Concordia University, Nebraska Shooting Sports program is preparing to host the ninth annual Concordia Bulldog Sporting Invitational. In a departure from previous years, the event will be held during the spring semester. The 2025 edition of the event is set to run Friday-Saturday (Feb. 28-March 1) at Oak Creek Sporting Club in Brainard, Neb., where action will begin at 9 a.m. CT both days. Oak Creek Sporting Club serves as the home range for the Bulldogs, who first put on this event in 2016. Since then, the Bulldog Sporting Invitational has routinely hosted more than 100 collegiate and high school competitors each year.
Head Coach Dylan Owens’ program will welcome many familiar rivals to Brainard, including the likes of Fort Hays State University (Kan.), Hastings and Midland. Oak Creek Sporting Club is located roughly 26 miles north of the Concordia campus.
The format for the Concordia Invitational features 200 sporting and 100 super sporting clay targets for each athlete over the two days of action. At the 2023 event (held during the fall semester), the Bulldogs placed second high overall behind champion Fort Hays State. The Bulldogs cracked 1,295 targets towards the team scoring. In the history of Concordia’s shooting sports program, coaches Joel Helmer, Scott Moniot and Owens have worked with Oak Creek Sporting Club owner Terry Kriz to put on the event.
Owens’ Bulldogs competed in six events this past fall, placing fifth at the Fort Hays State Shoot, fourth at the Simpson Invite, fourth at the Midland Open, third at the Prairie Circuit Conference Championships, first at the Hastings Invite and second at the Southeast Community College Invite. Four Concordia athletes came away from the conference championships with individual accolades: Sam Blevins (men’s doubles trap champion), Trevor Burch (PCC All-Freshman Team), Carter McKenna (PCC All-Freshman Team) and Katie Welker (women’s doubles trap champion and women’s PCC All-Conference Team). In contributing to the team title at the Hastings Invite, Kaylee Hinton and Breyer Meeks won HOA titles. In the final event of the fall, Devin Harris won the SECC Invite title in skeet.
2023 Concordia Invitational Team Standings (held in the fall)
1. Fort Hays State University - 1,361
2. Concordia University, Nebraska – 1,295
3. Midland University – 1,268
4. Hastings College – 1,284
5. Doane University – 1,221
6. NW Kansas Technical College – 1,204
7. University of Nebraska-Lincoln – 1,072
8. Waldorf University – 1,004
9. Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture – 858
Once the Concordia Invitational wraps up, the Bulldogs will look forward to the Iowa Western Community College Invite in Lincoln, Neb., the weekend of March 8-9. That event will be the final one prior to the 2025 ACUI Collegiate Clay Target National Championships (March 16-22).