2024 ACUI National Championships webpage
SEWARD, Neb. – A group of 15 Bulldogs will represent Concordia University Shooting Sports at the 2024 ACUI National Championships. After competing in Las Vegas in March of 2023 at the NCSSAA National Championships, the Bulldogs are making a return to Texas this spring. The 2024 national championship event will run March 19-23 and will be held at the National Shooting Complex in San Antonio. The event is slated to feature 100 targets each in American Skeet, American Trap, Sporting Clays, Doubles American Skeet, Doubles American Trap and Super Sporting.
2024 ACUI National Championships Schedule
· Tuesday, March 19 – American Skeet, American Doubles Skeet, American Trap, American Doubles Trap, Sporting Clays, & Super Sporting Competition Shooting
· Wednesday, March 20 – American Skeet, American Doubles Skeet, American Trap, American Doubles Trap, Sporting Clays, & Super Sporting Competition Shooting
· Thursday, March 21 – American Skeet, American Doubles Skeet, American Trap, American Doubles Trap, Sporting Clays, & Super Sporting Competition Shooting
· Friday, March 22 – American Skeet, American Doubles Skeet, American Trap, American Doubles Trap, Sporting Clays, & Super Sporting Competition Shooting
· Saturday, March 23 – Competition Shoot-Offs (specific shoot-off schedule will be released at a later date) & Awards Day.
At the 2023 NCSSAA National Championships, Head Coach Dylan Owens’ program placed third HOA out of 11 teams in the Division IV breakdown. The placement marked the highest ever for the program at a national championship competition. Wyatt Hambly, now the head coach at Wartburg College (Iowa), captured the individual HOA national championship. The rest of the team’s top five HOA included Tanner Muff (285), Jack Nelson (278), Sam Blevins (277) and Breyer Meeks (275). By discipline, the Bulldogs placed second in Doubles American Trap, Super Sporting, American Trap and Sporting Clays.
Prior to 2023, Concordia had routinely completed each season by competing at the ACUI National Championships in San Antonio. The Bulldogs placed fifth at nationals in San Antonio in 2022. The ACUI Clay Targets program was established in 1968 and is the oldest collegiate shotgun sports program. The ACUI Clay Targets program is a nonprofit, student-centered, campus-based community of student-athletes, volunteer and paid coaches, range facilities, sponsors, friends, families and ACUI staff.
The majority of fall 2023 weekends were spent on Nebraska shooting ranges as the Bulldogs competed in seven events from September through early November. Concordia placed in the top three as a team in six of those outings with second-place claims coming at the Mid-Plains Community College Fall Flurry and the program’s own Concordia Sporting Invitational. The fall portion of the 2023-24 season wrapped up for Owens’ squad with a trip to Waco, Texas, for the Waco Trap & Skeet Invitational. The result was a third-place team finish. The Bulldogs also placed third at the Prairie Circuit Conference Championships. The season resumed last weekend with the Doane Invitational in Lincoln, where Concordia placed fifth.
Senior Jack Nelson of Kimberly, Idaho, put a bow on the fall season by winning the overall individual title at the Waco Invitational. Throughout the fall, there were a number of individuals who notched perfect scores in specific disciplines. For example, Nelson ran 100 straight in skeet at the Hastings Invite and similar results were turned in by Sam Blevins in skeet at the Midland Open and by Blevins and Katie Welker at the Fort Hays State Shoot. At the conference shoot, Claire Kee won a sporting clays title and Kaylee Hinton won a championship in trap.
The ACUI will display results via its website (linked above) throughout the event. Check back for a full recap at the conclusion of the National Championships.