Head Coach: Dylan Owens (3rd season) 2024 Place Finishes: 3rd in Prairie Circuit Conference; 7th at ACUI National Championships – Division 2 (out of 15 teams). Returning National Qualifiers: Hayes Andelt; Samuel Blevins; Devin Harris; Kaylee Hinton; Breyer Meeks; Brennen Stones; Buchannan Tietjen; Mason Ward; Katie Welker. 2024 National Titles: Jessie Ciezki (women’s open skeet); Claire Kee (women’s open super sporting).
Outlook
The 2023-24 campaign marked the 10th season of competition in the history of the Concordia University Shooting Sports program. The 2024-25 team arrived on campus with the start of classes on Aug. 26 ready to build upon last season, which wrapped up with a seventh-place finish (Division 2) at the ACUI Collegiate Clay Target National Championships in San Antonio, Texas. Among the highlights in 2023-24, seven individual school records were broken as the Bulldogs keep raising the bar in an effort to keep up with improving competition regionally and nationally.
Head Coach Dylan Owens continues to put his stamp on the program as he enters his third year leading the Bulldogs. The roster for 2024-25 includes nine of the 15 Concordia athletes who qualified for the 2024 national championships. In other words, the foundation is in place heading into the fall.
Said Owens, “We had some people who shot some of their best scores ever last year. We saw incremental improvement from a lot of people and set a bunch of new school records. As far as improvements this year, sporting clays is going to be our big focus. We’ve had morning meetings every day going over some of the targets we know we’re going to see. Each target setter is going to have different targets. Another thing we’re going to focus on is trap. We saw a little bit of a dip in that last year. We want to make sure we get that score back up to where it needs to be.”
As official competition gets underway early in September, Owens will be able to lean upon a class of six seniors, including fifth-year Bulldog Breyer Meeks, the team’s top HOA shooter at the 2024 national championships. The upperclassmen have not been afraid to discuss lofty expectations. It’s natural for a program that placed third at the 2023 NCSSAA National Championships. Two departed seniors, Jessie Ciezki and Claire Kee, came away from the 2024 national shoot with women’s open national titles. It won’t be easy to replace Kee, who owns Concordia women’s single season records for sporting clays, super sporting and high overall averages.
On the plus side, Meeks represents one of the headlining returners, along with program record breakers such as Devin Harris and Sam Blevins. Harris set a new single season standard in 2023-24 for doubles skeet average (98.0 percent) while Blevins did the same in Olympic trap average (84.8 percent). Blevins, Harris and Meeks were joined at the ’24 national championships by returners Hayes Andelt, Kaylee Hinton, Brennen Stones, Buchannan Tietjen, Mason Ward and Katie Welker.
A junior from Twin Falls, Idaho, Ward juggles life as a student-athlete with his service to the National Guard. Ward enjoyed his finest moment a year ago at the Midland Open when he shot a perfect trap score and took home the title in the event. He believes the pieces are in place for the Bulldogs to make a leap forward this season.
“I’m very excited about the people we have coming back this year,” Ward said. “Breyer Meeks is coming back again. He’s a very big part of the team. Katie, Devin and Sam are back again this year. We’re a very close-knit group of individuals. Coach Owens brings together a lot of like-minded people. I think the team chemistry is going to be really on point this year. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do.”
This team will expect more from itself once it enters competition at the national championships this coming spring. This past season, Concordia started slow in sporting clays on day one at nationals and never fully recovered, hence, the seventh-place finish. Owens is strategizing to ensure a different result in 2025. By discipline, Concordia posted 2024 team national placements of fifth in super sporting, sixth in doubles skeet, sixth in doubles trap, eighth in skeet, 10th in trap and 14th in sporting clays.
A junior from Hamill, S.D., Katie Welker appears poised for her best season yet. This summer, Welker competed at SCTP nationals and came away with the collegiate women’s handicap national championship. She also took third place in women’s bunker at the Junior Olympics.
Says Welker, “I definitely had numbers that I wasn’t satisfied with last year and I’ve been working hard over the summer to perfect my skill in each event. I’m really looking forward to this year. I think we’ve got another great team and another great group of freshmen coming in. We’re just looking to improve in all areas in each discipline and hopefully bring home the national championship.”
While the sport is individualized in many ways, the Bulldogs are intentional about building close bonds within the program. Owens says that upperclassmen have arranged team meals during the first week of classes and that everyone has quickly bought into the demands of preseason preparation. Because the season is so near, Concordia is not wasting any time getting started with practice at the home range of Oak Creek Sporting Club in Brainard.
“We have truly one of the most connected teams, I think, in the nation,” Owens said. “They do a lot of stuff together and are really growing together. A couple returners we have, Sam and Breyer, are going to put up good scores no matter what they’re doing. Breyer got a new gun over the summer and he got it fitted to him, and he’s loving it. He’s feeling really confident with that. Sam is as cool as he ever is. Put a gun in his hands and put him on the field and he’s going to shoot well.”
As a twist this season, the annual Concordia Bulldog Sporting Invitational has been moved from the fall to the spring semester. Owens sees many advantages in making this change. The event has been shifted away from fall break and will allow a breather this fall and will give the team an added spring competition to prepare for the national championships. This past year, the Bulldogs placed second at their own invite.
As the schedule stands, Concordia will compete in seven fall events and four spring shoots. The ACUI Collegiate Clay Target National Championships (March 16-22, 2025) will again take place in San Antonio. On the road to San Antonio, the Bulldogs will rub elbows frequently with rivals such as Fort Hays State University and Midland University. Concordia placed third behind those two teams at the 2023 Prairie Circuit Conference Championships.
For now, the Bulldogs are focused on the process that they believe will lead them to achieve greater heights than the program has previously experienced.
Says Ward in reflection, “I think the team did really well in San Antonio (last season). We identified some weak points, but there were also a lot of strong points for us. The team was a lot more consistent last year than we were my freshman year, which I’m really proud of. I know we have some really good freshmen coming in this year … The end goal is to win the national championship. That’s what I want to do and that’s what everyone on the team wants to do.”
Part of the process of preparing to compete at the highest level involves the mental side of the sport. Owens says the team is placing a premium on having the right thought process. As Owens explains, “We’ll talk about things like pre-shot planning. When you step in the box for sporting clays, what are you looking for? Where are the traps? How do you decide which target you shoot first?”
In the mind of Welker, the ability to simply have fun can make all the difference. Said Welker, “I think a successful season would be competing to the best of our abilities but also having fun. If you’re not having fun, then what’s the point of doing it? You have to be able to enjoy your time and not stress yourself the whole time you’re shooting.”
In his closing thoughts, Owens offered, “We really just want to get everyone on the same page. We have five wonderful freshmen. They’ve been shooting really well in practice. We have to get them used to the schedule and how we do things on the team. One of the big things for me to figure out is squadding and who shoots well together and how we can maximize our efficiency.”
The complete 2024-25 Concordia Shooting Sports schedule can be found HERE.
Stones leads Bulldogs in fifth-place finish at Fort Hays State Shoot
HAYS, Kan. – The 2024-25 Concordia University Shooting Sports season got underway at the Fort Hays State University Shoot over the weekend (Sept. 7-8). In terms of high overall scoring, the Bulldogs placed fifth out of the 12 teams that convened upon LaSada Lodge in Russell, Kan., for day one and then Hays City Sportsmen’s Club in Hays, Kan., for day two. More than 175 athletes were tested in the disciplines of sporting, super sporting, trap, trap doubles and skeet doubles. Senior Brennen Stones emerged as Concordia’s top overall shooter with 396 targets busted out of a possible 450.
This was the beginning of Head Coach Dylan Owens’ third season leading the Bulldogs. In the season opener, Concordia found itself rubbing elbows with familiar rivals such as Midland, host Fort Hays State and Hastings.
“I have to give Brennan a shoutout. He’s one of our most consistent competitors,” Owens said. “He’s going to show up and give us good scores in every event. It doesn’t matter what the conditions are or what’s going on. It’s nice to have someone like that who is a foundational person and is really consistent.
“Normally for us, our trap and skeet scores are going to be really good. We shot 15 targets lower than our average in trap, so it was a tough start. Conditions were pretty good other than a little wind on Saturday. The big takeaway is that we need to spend a lot more time getting ready for big shoots like this. Most of our shoots are 300 or maybe 400 targets. This one was 450 over two days.”
Competitors at the Fort Hays State Shoot were tasked with walking long distances across a spread-out course. When the dust settled, the Bulldogs posted an HOA total of 1,952, placing them behind Midland, Fort Hays State, Hastings and Iowa Western Community College. Following Stones (28th overall), Concordia’s top five HOA included Sam Blevins (395), Devin Harris (390), Buchannan Tietjen (387) and Breyer Meeks (384).
By event, the Bulldogs placed tied for second in skeet doubles (232), third in super sporting (401), fourth in sporting (443), fifth in trap doubles (444) and sixth in trap (478). Individually, Concordia’s top performers by category were Blevins, Harris and Rayne Larrison (83 apiece) in super sporting, Stones in sporting (92), Hayes Andelt in doubles trap (91), Katie Welker in trap (97) and Meeks, Stones and Tietjen in skeet doubles (47 apiece). Welker turned in the fourth highest trap total among females at the Fort Hays State Shoot.
A total of 18 Bulldogs competed at the event. The team’s six through 10 finishers HOA were Welker (380), Carter McKenna (379), Andelt (373), Kaylee Hinton (362) and Trevor Burch (361). Burch and McKenna were two of the five freshmen who experienced a collegiate shoot for the first time.
Said Owens, “We need to get some practice in getting through those longer courses. All in all, skeet went pretty well. We did miss a few targets that we would have liked to have back. A couple freshmen showed some good stuff. They are taking to the process and the mentality of making sure we’re getting our feet set and our hole points are right. We’re becoming more process-oriented.”
Next up, Concordia will head to Waukee, Iowa, for the Simpson College Invite this Saturday and Sunday. The venue for the competition will be New Pioneer Gun Club, where action is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. CT both days.
Concordia improves trap score, places fourth at Simpson Invite
WAUKEE, Iowa – From week one to week two of the 2024-25 season, Concordia University Shooting Sports displayed marked improvement across the board. Led by a 99 from Carter McKenna in trap, the Bulldogs crept back closer to their expectations and placed fourth high overall (HOA) at the Simpson College Invite held on Sept. 14-15. All competitors were tasked with 350 targets in the disciplines of trap, sporting, skeet and super sporting at New Pioneer Gun Club in Waukee, Iowa.
Head Coach Dylan Owens’ squad cracked 1,577 targets towards the HOA team leaderboard. The top three finishers were William Penn University (1,660), Lindenwood University (1,659) and Midland University (1,657) in a tight competition for the Simpson Invite championship.
“We shot trap on Saturday, which is different from most shoots,” Owens said. “We came off trap with those scores (487/500), and it made me much happier this week. Then we came back and did it again in skeet. You could tell the team was much more joyful. We were much closer to our goals compared to last week. In sporting, we put up several decent scores, but we could have been several targets better. That’s something we’ll be practicing this week.”
After Concordia posted a trap score of 478 at the Fort Hays Intercollegiate Shoot (Sept. 7-8), the Bulldogs improved to 487 at the Simpson Invite with the help of a near perfect performance by McKenna. The rest of the team’s top five in trap included Brennen Stones and Mason Ward with a 98 apiece and Sam Blevins and Hannah Dean with a 96 each. As a team, the Bulldogs also totaled scores of 487/500 in skeet, 396/500 in sporting and 207/250 in super sporting. In skeet, Sam Blevins shot 99/100 while 97s were produced by Stones, Trevor Burch, Kaylee Hinton and Cael Washburn.
The La Grange, Ky., native Blevins paced Concordia from an HOA perspective by busting 315 targets. As a comparison, the top individual at the Simpson Invite, Lindenwood’s Matthew Lorio, shot 335. Blevins was followed in the Bulldogs’ top five HOA by Stones (314), Burch (310), Hinton (308), Breyer Meeks (305) and Buchannan Tietjen (305). The top HOA female shooter at the event was Lindenwood’s Grace Corselli with a 332.
Said Owens, “Sam shot a really good HOA score and Brennen did again this week. Just killed it. We had several people shoot much better. Overall, the weekend was much better than last weekend. I think our team was much more focused. It is very difficult to shoot 450 targets in two days (as the team did at the Fort Hays State Shoot). If you’re not used to that level of shooting, that can really wear you out. Part of it is getting used to the travel schedule and practicing as much as we are. It takes a little bit of an adjustment. I think we have that confidence back now in trap and skeet.”
There were 17 competitors that represented the Bulldogs at the Simpson Invite. The entire field included nearly 150 athletes from eight different institutions. The Simpson Invite team champion William Penn is coached by Concordia alum Colten Uitermarkt.
The Bulldogs will stay close to home this weekend as they look forward to the Midland Warrior Open this Saturday and Sunday. The event will be held at Lincoln Trap & Skeet in Lincoln, Neb. Concordia placed fifth at the 2023 Midland Open.