RESULTS: Concordia only (PDF) | Full Results
LINCOLN, Neb. – In its first action in three weeks, Concordia University, Nebraska Shooting Sports finished in sixth place high overall (HOA) at the Midland Warrior Open that played out the weekend of Sept. 19-20. The Bulldogs cracked 1,546 targets towards the HOA team leaderboard while going up against competitors from 10 other institutions. Individually, standout graduate students Katie Welker-Luetje and Devin Harris continued to lead the way. Welker-Luetje earned the HOA title on the women’s side.
Head Coach Dylan Owens’ program was represented by 19 athletes at the Warrior Open, which took place at Lincoln Trap and Skeet Club. The event tested competitors with 350 total targets across the disciplines of skeet, sporting clays, super sporting and trap.
Noted Owens, “If you just look at the scores, sporting clays was probably what cost us in the HOA situation. I think 79 was our highest. I'm really happy with our skeet. We had a lot of really good scores, although I think we could have had a few more people shoot a little bit better … Our main focus this week is just resetting and figuring out a couple of little tweaks to get ready for conference this weekend.
“The freshmen are really showing improvement. I think there's definitely more room for improvement. I'd love for our trap scores to get back up to where they normally are, but we had some people shoot really well.”
Now the program’s GA under Owens, Welker-Luetje continues to compete at a high level. She won the HOA women’s championship at the Warrior Open for the second straight year. The Hamill, S.D., native cracked 313 targets (out of a possible 350) in her latest go-round at Lincoln Trap and Skeet, which features a new sporting clays course. Welker-Luetje shot 97 in trap and 94 in skeet. Three of her teammates also broke 300 targets HOA: Harris (310), junior Clayton Gellerman (302) and sophomore Jerry Kaibel (301).
Concordia started strong on day one of the Warrior Open as both Harris and Kaibel ran 99s in skeet. Not far off, sophomore Cody Carlson produced a 97 while Gellerman shot 96. In all other events, Welker-Luetje either led or shared the team lead as she posted scores of 79 in sport clays, 43 in super sporting and 97 in trap. Harris equaled her in both sporting and super sporting. As Owens also noted, Hannah Dean ran her first 50 in skeet before finishing with a 94.
In other commendable efforts, Gellerman shot 77 in sporting and 42 in super sporting while Jaggar Luetje posted a 96 in trap. Luetje busted 292 total targets, rounding out the team’s HOA top five. By discipline, the Bulldogs’ team scores were 476 in trap, 485 in skeet, 378 in sporting and 207 in super sporting.
Said Owens of Dean, “It's nice to see her and several others really stepping up to shoot above what they normally shoot. Things are starting to click and settle in, which is good … I think we're seeing a lot of good stuff. We just need to work through a few more things to really push us up there and get back to being as competitive as we used to be.”
Owens added, “We had a few people who had to stop shooting skeet in the middle of their round, go shoot sporting and super, and then come back and finish at the end of the day because of the scheduling. That probably cost us a few targets as a team.”
The Warrior Open served as a pre-cursor to the Prairie Circuit Conference Championships, which will unfold at Heartland Public Shooting Park in Grand Island, Neb., this Friday through Sunday.
Said Owens of the format for the conference shoot, “We'll be shooting 100 trap, 100 skeet, 100 sporting clays, 100 doubles trap, 100 doubles skeet and 100 sporting clays. It'll be kind of a mini nationals for all the teams out there, so it should be good.”