Senior team captain Matthew Daniels practices out of the 5-gun stand at the Liberty Mountain Gun Club.
Shotgun team adds top-level recruits, assistant coach, sets sights on Dec. 1 Mid-Atlantic Cup
11/4/2024 3:09:00 PM | Shotgun
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Liberty welcomed a number of promising recruits and former team captain and chaplain Jonathan Britton to the team, which has grown from 15 to 20 members.
Preparing for the 2024-25 season-opening USA Shooting Sports Mid-Atlantic Cup at Brushy Mountain Club in Hurt, Va., Liberty University's shotgun team is making the most of fall semester practices under instruction from second-year Head Coach Jacob Davis and new Assistant Coach Jonathan Britton ('22) at the Liberty Mountain Gun Club.
The Flames are led by two senior captains, Matt Daniels and Dalton Krossman, as well as two spiritual Disciple Makers, chaplains Ryan Doyle, a freshman, and senior Harrison Russell.
Junior Nathan Hagy takes a break between practice rounds.
"I'm very excited to see how this season goes," Daniels said. "Coming into my last year on the team, seeing all the new shooters and recruits and walk-ons that we have excites me a lot, (especially seeing) the potential that they have and the potential that we have this year by having Jacob as our head coach for a second year. He's doing a great job, and it just excites me (for) the future."
Davis, who served as the team's captain his senior season in 2021-22, was eager to welcome Britton — a captain his junior year and chaplain as a senior — to the coaching staff after competing alongside him for four seasons.
"He was a very good shooter in his time here and is also a great coach and spiritual leader," Davis said. "We both are working with all of the team members in all of the disciplines this season."
He appreciates the way the newcomers on the team have meshed with the returning shooters as they sharpen one another for the Mid-Atlantic Cup on Dec. 1, when Liberty expects to compete against other teams from Virginia and North Carolina.
"It's a very good balance, with very good upperclassmen and new recruits coming in," Davis said. "It is a very good dynamic (and) things are off to a great start this year. In the first weeks of practice everyone's shooting really well, and it looks like it's going to be a really good season."
Davis and Britton kept a roster of 20 on this season's squad, but only plan to send 10 to nationals to remain in Division 3. The Flames and Lady Flames finished third in that division last spring with a higher aggregate score than their national championship total from 2023.
Flames senior Daniel Hudson shoots out of the 5-stand.
"We've been in Division 3 for the past several years and we're looking at hopefully going into Division 2 in the future, which is why we started with 20 people on the team rather than 15 this year," Davis said.
"This year, we're actually attracting a lot of shooters who have competed in the past, either on a Junior OIympic format or in high school," Russell added. "It's great to see our caliber and the potential of shooters increase as the program expands. I'm very confident … this is going to be one of our strongest years."
The Flames and Lady Flames have been practicing on the sporting clays fields located on Long Mountain as well as the skeet, trap, and 5-stand setups on the main range. Liberty no longer trains in international trap or bunker events as those have been discontinued from the ACUI national championships, where shooters compete in skeet, trap, sporting clays, super sporting clays, doubles skeet, and doubles trap, in which targets are thrown two at a time.
The team received more than $19,000 in donations on Liberty's annual Giving Day, which will help cover the costs of ammunition and targets as well as traveling to the Feb. 7-9 ACUI Lower East Coast Conference Championships in Savannah, Ga., and the March 16-22 ACUI Collegiate Clay Target Championships in San Antonio.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer; Video edited by Reagan Underwood/Club Sports Video & Media Intern
