Head Coach: Dylan Owens (4th season) 2024-25 Place Finishes: 3rd in Prairie Circuit Conference; 7th at ACUI National Championships – Division 2 (out of 14 teams). Returning National Qualifiers: Sam Blevins; Ella Cowan; Hannah Dean; Colby Gaines; Devin Harris; Kaylee Hinton; Jaggar Luetje; Faith Ritchie; Lane Schoff; Cael Washburn; Katie Welker. 2025 Nationals Highlights: Sam Blevins – third place in men’s open trap; Katie Welker – third place in women’s open trap.
Outlook
Competition week has arrived for Concordia University, Nebraska Shooting Sports, which carries optimism into the 2025-26 season. The new campaign marks the program’s eighth season of official competition as a varsity athletic team. Along with the start of the fall semester, the Bulldogs have returned to the range at Oak Creek Sporting Club in preparation for the upcoming Fort Hays State Intercollegiate Shoot. Concordia is coming off a 2024-25 season that saw it place third in the Prairie Circuit Conference and seventh in the Division 2 breakdown at the ACUI National Championships.
Head Coach Dylan Owens enters his fourth season leading the program, which is just a couple of years removed from a third-place nationals finish. At this point in the year, the Bulldogs are not thinking at all about team placements. Inrecemental progress will yield the results they aspire to attain.
“Improvement in shooting sports is always the goal,” Owens said. “In our sport, you’re not playing offense and defense. It makes a much bigger difference to see that you are growing and that the team as a whole is growing. Better placement is always nice, but it’s more important to ask, did we do better than last year? You can’t judge yourself based on the placement … The goal for the team this year is (for each athlete) to really buckle down in one or two events. We’re focusing on those scores to then see our team’s improvement.”
The roster of 20 features 11 returners who competed at the 2025 ACUI National Championships in San Antonio, Texas. Notably, Sam Blevins (third place in men’s open trap) and Katie Welker (third place in women’s open trap) are back after earning national medals this past spring. Blevins will continue to crack targets even as he takes on a larger role this season as a graduate assistant for Owens. A native of Hamill, S.D., Welker brings leadership and sets an example to follow as someone who has performed at a high level.
Blevins (La Grange, Ky.) and Welker are two of six remaining Bulldogs who have been part of the program for the entirety of Owens’ tenure. The others who fit that category are seniors Colby Gaines (Tulsa, Okla.), Kaylee Hinton (Hiawatha, Kan.) and Paige Roiger (Fairmont, Minn.) and graduate student Cael Washburn (Fort Collins, Colo.). At last season’s conference championships, Blevins and Welker won doubles trap titles on their way to impressive 2024-25 campaigns. In another major highlight of last season, Hinton and Breyer Meeks claimed high overall individual titles as Concordia took home the first-place trophy from the Hastings Invite. Additionally, Devin Harris captured a skeet championship at the SECC Invite.
In addition to Blevins and Welker, the returning national qualifiers include Ella Cowan, Hannah Dean, Gaines, Harris, Hinton, Jaggar Luetje, Faith Ritchie, Lane Schoff and Washburn. Blevins and Harris were the team’s top two HOA shooters at the national championships as they posted totals of 545/600 and 544/600, respectively. In a significant moment in the fall of 2023, Hinton snared a women’s trap conference title.
Those who have been there and done that have the responsibly of helping bring along the class of newcomers. The roster includes seven freshmen and a transfer in Clayton Gellerman of Anchorage, Alaska.
Says Luetje, who hails from Westside, Iowa, “There’s cohesion in our team. I know it’s the first couple weeks (of the semester). I think everybody gets along with each other great and we’re talking about what we’re going to do to better ourselves. We’re helping each other when it comes to practice and making sure everything is fine-tuned. We’re fixing those little things that weigh us down when we go to shoot, so we can be ready to shoot our best ever.”
It takes time to master specific disciplines within competitive shooting. The format at the national championships includes skeet, trap, doubles skeet, doubles trap, sporting clays and super sporting. Oftentimes, athletes enter college having not shot each of these events. The seniors offer a glimpse at what is possible for those with the right attitude and work ethic.
“Most of our seniors coming in were not used to shooting as many events,” Owens said. “To see them grow is rewarding. I’ll use Katie as an example. She had only shot skeet a couple of times before she got to college. Last week at practice she ran a 24 of 25 on one of the rounds. Now she’s starting to see it. Development takes time. You have to commit to the process of putting in the work. We’re seeing that with all the seniors now. They are still getting better, but they’ve improved so much in the past couple of years. They can tell the freshmen and sophomores that it works. You just have to stick to the process and it’ll come.”
Strategically, Owens is making a point of having athletes focus more intensely on just two or three of the six events. The idea is that approach will help maximize Concordia’s team scoring when it comes time for the 2026 ACUI National Championships in the spring semester. Owens wants to see a larger portion of the roster factoring into the team’s national championship scoring.
A Lincoln North Star High School alum, Cowan hopes to make waves as she enters her sophomore year. She was proud of how she adapted after having only shot trap prior to competing at the collegiate level. Said Cowan, “For me personally, I’m trying to work more on being more consistent and hopefully taking home a trophy or two. Hopefully I can get closer to that level … I think it’s going to be a good year and we’re going to really try to home in on our team bonding.”
The seven freshmen each come from different states with locales such as Idaho and Tennessee represented on the roster. Owens already sees the freshmen pushing hard in practice.
“I would say that this group of freshmen is probably the most competitive freshman group I’ve seen in a long time,” Owens said. “A lot of them came in setting really high standards for themselves. We’re working on curbing those standards a little bit to say you can do this, but let’s make sure our goals are not just scores. Our goals should be improvement. Most of them have a lot of travel experience at the state or national level. They come out in the first couple of practices and showed they’re here to work hard and to make a difference. I really hope that they’re able to do that.”
The season will get underway with the Fort Hays State Fall Intercollegiate Shoot on Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 6-7), offering a chance for the freshmen to showcase their talents while the returners look to display the progress they have made since the spring. Hopes are high as the Bulldogs brace for a hectic fall slate made up of seven total outings.
Says Luetje of the expectations, “A successful season looks like bringing home a couple national championships. It’s what I want and a lot of people on our team want. I think we want it really bad.”
For Owens, there are specific markers he is looking for, and it’s not all about place finishes. Said Owens, “It would be great to win a lot this year. I think what would be greater is to see the team continue in growth both personally and on the field. We’re working really hard, Sam and I, to create ways they can experience that growth. Practices will probably look a little bit different this year than previous years. We’re having them focus on a couple of events and be more expert in those events. If we take all 20 to nationals, if I could have all 20 place in one thing for the team, that would be the top of the mountain.”
The complete 2025-26 schedule can be found HERE. For the second year in a row, the Concordia Bulldog Sporting Invitational will be staged during the spring semester. The 2026 Concordia Invitational is set for Feb. 27-28 at Oak Creek. Meanwhile, the 2026 ACUI Collegiate Clay Target National Championships are locked in for March 15-21 in San Antonio.
Blevins wins trap title as Bulldogs claim fifth place at Fort Hays State shoot
HAYS, Kan. – The 2025-26 season got underway this past weekend (Sept. 6-7) for Concordia University, Nebraska Shooting Sports. Eighteen Bulldogs competed at the Fort Hays State University Fall Intercollegiate Shoot in Hays, Kan., where Head Coach Dylan Owens’ team came away with a fifth-place high overall finish among 12 teams in the field. The event tested more than 200 athletes in the disciplines of doubles skeet, trap, doubles trap, sporting and super sporting and was held at Hays Sportsmen’s Club on day one and LaSada Lodge on day two.
From an individual perspective, Sam Blevins (first place in men’s trap) and Katie Welker (second place in women's doubles skeet) emerged with headlining performances. Owens, now in his fourth season as head coach, came away pleased with many of the things he saw throughout the weekend, including the efforts of seven freshmen.
“It’s really cool that we had that many freshmen contribute to the team score,” Owens said. “They had some first-time jitters in their first collegiate event. It’s a different kind of feeling. They were still putting up scores good enough to be in our top five. Now we have a foundation that we can build on. It was a long day (on Saturday). That kind of wore on all the teams, but this is the best weather we’ve ever had at Fort Hays.
“We’re trying to focus in and make a push for conference. We want to get to conference and be peaking at that time. After only two weeks of practice, some of those scores are really good. We left a few out there. I think all our athletes would tell you that. I’m really happy with everyone’s attitude and the way they are working together.”
Concordia’s top five overall competitors at the Fort Hays State Shoot combined to crack 1,971 targets out of a possible 2,250. By discipline, the Bulldogs placed fourth in doubles skeet (231/250), fourth in trap (485/500), fourth in doubles trap (447/500), fifth in sporting (432/500) and sixth in super sporting (418/500). In busting 414 total targets (out of 500) on the weekend, the La Grange, Ky., native Blevins finished only six targets off the overall champion from Fort Hays State, Grant Rainey. Next in Concordia’s top five HOA were Devin Harris (406), Welker (398), Kaylee Hinton (378) and Cael Washburn (375).
Both Blevins and Welker took part in shoot-offs. Blevins was a perfect 150/150 after he ran 100 straight in trap before knocking out all 50 targets in the shoot-off. Welker hit 47/50 in doubles skeet before landing in second place in the event. A senior from Hamill, S.D., Welker also earned third place HOA among women at the Fort Hays State Shoot. Blevins also shot team best scores in doubles trap (92) and super sporting (87). In doubles skeet, Harris equaled Welker with a 47. On day two of the event, Harris posted a 92 in sporting.
Owens made mention of the emergence of three freshmen who shot 95 apiece in trap: Brody Ferguson, Jerry Keibel and Josie Strauss. They each claimed spots within the team’s top five in trap. Owens also commended senior Colby Gaines for his improvement while saying, “He’s worked really hard, progressed and grown.” Gaines cracked the team’s top five in super sporting with an 80/100.
The top four in the HOA team standings at the Fort Hays State Shoot were host Fort Hays State (2,074), Iowa Western Community College (2,060), Midland University (2,046) and Hastings College (1,987). The Bulldogs will attempt to close the gap on the competition as the fall continues.
Said Owens, “It’s a starting point. It’s a tough transition for freshmen. It’s also a transition because we’re all in new squads this year. Just about everyone is on a new squad. You have to get used to those changes and be able to communicate.”
Up next, Concordia will be headed to Indianola, Iowa, for the Simpson College Invite on Saturday and Sunday. At last season’s Simpson Invite, the Bulldogs placed fourth out of eight teams.