Full Results | Concordia Scores (PDF)
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. – Three days of competition at Heartland Public Shooting Park in Grand Island, Neb., decided the 2025 Prairie Circuit Conference Championships (Sept. 26-28). When the smoke cleared, Concordia University, Nebraska Shooting Sports placed fourth high overall among the seven teams in the field. Individually, senior Katie Welker placed as the women’s HOA runner up and emerged as the Bulldogs’ top overall shooter. The conference event tested athletes in the disciplines of trap, doubles trap, skeet, doubles skeet and sporting clays for a total of 500 targets.
Head Coach Dylan Owens’ Bulldogs busted 2,261 targets (out of a possible 2,500) towards the team leaderboard, putting them eight targets off of third place. The top three finishers were Fort Hays State University (2,390), Midland University (2,378) and Hastings College (2,269).
“I thought the team did really well,” Owens said. “Some of the things I wanted to see, we were able to accomplish. We ended up third in doubles trap with some of our best scoring in a while. I don’t see why we can’t gain another 10 to 15 targets, which would be huge. Our trap is probably what held us back from placing higher. We shot a 471, which is low for us. There was a little bit of wind and some changing targets that not everyone was adjusting to well (in skeet).” As Owens went on to note, Concordia came away believing it left some targets out there.
Welker has starred throughout the month of September and was coming off a women’s HOA title at the Midland Invite. The Hamill, S.D., native blew away 462 total targets at the Prairie Circuit Championships, placing behind only Fort Hays State’s Emily Miller (478) among women. Welker also took home the runner-up award in sporting clays (88) after losing the shoot-off to Miller. Additionally, Welker was named to the All-Prairie Circuit All-Conference team based on her performance in Grand Island. She competed in three total shoot-offs, including skeet doubles and trap.
Welker posted the Bulldogs’ best scores in trap (97) and doubles skeet (94). Meanwhile, Devin Harris recorded a team high in doubles trap (91), Sam Blevins did the same in sporting clays (90) and Harris and Kaylee Hinton tied for a Concordia best in skeet (96). As a team, the Bulldogs placed third in doubles trap (437), third in trap (471), fourth in sporting (429), fourth in doubles skeet (452) and fourth in skeet (472).
From an HOA perspective, Concordia’s best competitors after Welker were Blevins (456), Harris (455), Hinton (431) and Clayton Gellerman (422). Eight of the 19 Bulldogs in the competition shot 400 HOA or better. Welker finished one target out of the top 10 of the overall individual leaderboard (including men and women). Miller’s total of 478 stood out as a Prairie Circuit Conference best.
Said Owens, “Katie was in three different shoot-offs. She kept fighting and working hard. Her sporting competition against Emily Miller was great. It was very tough targets she had to shoot-off on. Kudos to her for her hard work … all in all, it was a good event. We will be adding super sporting next year (to the conference championship). Projecting out to nationals, I see areas where we’re doing really well. We need to keep that standard and improve our trap and skeet game. That will make us more competitive at nationals. We wanted to see more people in our top five (across disciplines), and we’re seeing that. I’m happy about that. We’re moving in the direction we want to be moving.”
With the fourth-place team finish, the Bulldogs beat out the likes of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2,150), the University of Wyoming (2,116) and Oklahoma Panhandle State University (1,809). Between the seven teams in the meet, there were more than 130 individual competitors.
Action will continue for a fifth straight weekend as the Bulldogs will return to Grand Island for the Hastings Bronco Invite on Oct. 4-5. Concordia won last year’s Hastings Invite as Kaylee Hinton and Breyer Meeks earned individual HOA championships.