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LINCOLN, Neb. – In outing No. 3 of the 2023-24 season, 25 Bulldogs took to Lincoln Trap & Skeet Club in Lincoln, Neb., for the Midland Warrior Open held on Sept. 23-24. When the dust settled, Concordia University Shooting Sports placed fifth HOA out of 15 squads present at the event. Notably, sophomore Mason Ward took home the trap title on the men’s side with a perfect score and senior Sam Blevins ran 100 straight in skeet.
Head Coach Dylan Owens’ squad posted an HOA total of 1,369 at the Midland Open. The top four teams in the HOA standings were William Penn University (1,411), Fort Hays State University (1,403), Midland (1,382) and Hastings (1,371).
“We had eight with at least 96 in skeet and I don’t remember the last time we had that many with scores that high,” Owens said. “That was really good to see. Things weren’t clicking the way we’d like in sporting clays. That’s something we’re going to spend a lot of time on in practice, especially going into conference. We need to lock down what we’re doing in sporting clays. For the most part, everyone’s overall shooting is better. We’re just not getting the five scores all at once to place higher overall as a team. We’re seeing other teams really growing and that means we have to put in more work.”
A native of Twin Falls, Idaho, Ward put on an impressive display over the weekend. Not only did he bring home some hardware for his championship in trap, he led the team from an HOA perspective with a total of 282. That figure put him in a tie for fourth place individually in a field of more than 240 competitors. The rest of Concordia’s top five in terms of HOA included Blevins (280), Jack Nelson (270), Katie Welker (270) and a quartet of Bulldogs with 267: Ames Andelt, Devin Harris, Claire Kee and Wayne Moore. After shooting a 100 in skeet, Blevins placed as the runner up in the shoot off.
In the three disciplines contested at Lincoln Trap & Skeet, Concordia placed second in trap (491), fifth in skeet (486) and fifth in sporting clays (416). Both Blevins and Welker shot perfect 100s in trap at the Fort Hays State Shoot. In this instance, they both shot 98 – so too did Moore. Hayes Andelt came in as the team’s No. 5 performer in trap with a 97. In skeet, Breyer Meeks shot 98 in backing Blevins.
As part of Ward’s impressive weekend, he also led the team in sporting clays (88). That was the fifth best sporting clays total in the field at the Midland Open.
Said Owens, “Mason’s done such a fantastic job. Last year, he was growing incrementally throughout the season. He goes back over summer and he started shooting a lot more ATA and did work on his sporting clays. His scores have jumped pretty big. He ran a 99 at nationals, so running 100 doesn’t seem like that much in trap. When you gain two or three targets here and there, that puts you in a whole different class. He was on deployment with the National Guard for the first two weeks of school, so he wasn’t able to start practicing until he got back. We see where he’s at now.”
As a team, Concordia has turned in HOA place finishes of third (out of 12) at the Fort Hays State Shoot, second (out of 11) at the Mid-Plains Community College Fall Flurry and fifth (out of 15) at the Midland Open. One of the team’s biggest thrills to this point was its first-place trap finish (494/500) at Fort Hays State.
The Prairie Circuit Conference Championships are up next. The event will run this Friday through Sunday and will take place at Lincoln County Wildlife Gun Club in North Platte, Neb. The Bulldogs placed third in the conference last season. Concordia claimed the team Prairie Circuit championship in the fall of 2020.