SEWARD, Neb. – The Concordia University, Nebraska Shooting Sports program is preparing to host the 10th annual Concordia Bulldog Sporting Invitational. The first eight invites were held during the fall semester. Beginning last year, Concordia moved the event to the spring semester. The 2026 edition of the event is set to run Friday-Saturday (Feb. 27-28) at Oak Creek Sporting Club in Brainard, Neb., where action will begin at 2 p.m. on day one and at 9 a.m. on day two. 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 expects to welcome several local rivals to the 2026 Concordia Invite. This year’s event will include a total of 173 athletes from 12 institutions. 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 2025 event, the Bulldogs placed fourth high overall behind champion Fort Hays State University, as well as Midland and Hastings. The Bulldogs cracked 1,292 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.
As part of the home invite, the Bulldogs will honor three seniors: Kaylee Hinton (Hiawatha, Kan.), Paige Roger (Fairmont, Minn.) and Katie Welker (Hamill, S.D.). Their careers have spanned the head coaching tenure of Owens.
Owens entered his team into six competitions during this past fall semester. The team’s place finishes were fifth at the Fort Hays State Shoot, fourth at the Simpson Invite, seventh at the Midland Open, fourth at the Prairie Circuit Conference Championships, fourth at the Hastings Invite and second at the Southeast Community College Invite. It was a spectacular fall for senior Katie Welker, who claimed two women’s high overall championships, shot two separate 100s in trap, was the HOA runner up at the conference championships and was named an all-conference award winner. On the men’s side, Devin Harris starred while winning the men’s HOA title at the SCC Invite. At the conference shoot in Grand Island, Neb., the team’s top HOA shooters outside of Welker (462) were Sam Blevins (456), Harris (455), Kaylee Hinton (431) and Clayton Gellerman (422). The ACUI Collegiate Clay Target National Championships will be held in March of 2026.
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 7-8. That event will be the final one prior to the 2026 ACUI Collegiate Clay Target National Championships (March 15-21) in San Antonio, Texas.