Shotgun team places third in highly competitive Upper Midwest Championships in Ohio

Friday, October 3

Marengo, OH

8:00 AM

Liberty University Club Sports

ACUI North Central Conference Championships

Liberty's shotgun Head Coach Jacob Davis (left) entered 15 team members in the ACUI Upper Midwest Conference Championships at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio.

Shotgun team places third in highly competitive Upper Midwest Championships in Ohio

10/7/2025 1:33:00 PM | Shotgun

The Flames and Lady Flames entered 15 team members in the three-day conference event, and Matthew Daniels won a tiebreaker with Clemson for third place.

Matt Daniels Sporting Clays third-place finisher — Senior Matthew Daniels won a third-pace shootoff with Clemson in Sporting Clays.

Shooting for the first time in the extremely competitive ACUI Upper Midwest Conference Championships at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio — one of the largest and finest facilities in the nation — Liberty University's shotgun team placed third out of six teams by winning a tiebreaker with Clemson on Sunday's third and final day.

The Flames and Lady Flames, who placed third in Division 3 at the past two national events in San Antonio after claiming their first national title in 2023, competed against three other programs that were former ACUI national champions in their respective divisions.

Hillsdale (Mich.) College, which won close to 15 consecutive Division 3 national titles before moving up to Division 2 in 2022 and winning the past four national crowns at that level, was the conference champion with 2,129 points in the Team High Overall Award.

The HOA Award factored in totals from the Sporting Clays, Super Sporting Clays, Skeet, Doubles Skeet, Trap, and Doubles Trap disciplines, with each program's top five shooters in each of the six events contributing to the final team score.

Bethel (Minn.) University, the reigning Division 3 national champion that previously competed at the Division 1 level, placed second in the Team HOA standings with 2,109 points.

"It was a smaller tournament overall, but incredibly stiff competition," Flames Head Coach Jacob Davis said, noting the team still plans to travel to the Lower East Coast Conference Championships in Savannah, Ga., in February as a final tuneup for the March 15-21 ACUI National Championships in Texas.

The Flames and Lady Flames totaled 2,049 points — 24 more than they had at last season's Lower East Coast Conference championships, in which they placed fifth out of 15 teams and first among Division 3 programs. They won the tiebreaker over Clemson (2,049 points) when senior co-captain Matt Daniels hit four of six targets in the first round and three of four in the second round of a one-on-one Sporting Clays shootoff.
The Tigers have captured two Division 1 national championships over the past 10 years.

Graduate Dalton Krossman and Daniels placed third in Sporting Clays and Super Sporting Clays, respectively.

Daniels finished eighth out of 46 competitors in the Individual HOA standings, based on his 417 total out of a possible score of 450 in the six events combined. He placed third in Super Sporting Clays by hitting 49 out of 50 targets and winning a nine-way tiebreaker that also included Flames freshman Gavin Glossner, junior Garrett Thompson, and senior Gabriel Richardson.

Graduate Dalton Krossman, who placed 10th in the HOA rankings with a 410 total, landed in third place in Sporting Clays by hitting 89 out of a possible 100 targets.

"It was a good team-bonding opportunity to be able to travel in the fall semester for the first time in several years," Davis said. "We brought 15 shooters, and they all performed very well. We had very solid performances and showed very good depth across the board, with a lot of different team members contributing to the overall team score."

Liberty will host the Mid-Atlantic Cup on Nov. 15 at the Brushy Mountain Gun Club in Hurt, Va., where it hopes to draw other collegiate programs from Virginia and North Carolina.

By Ted Allen/Staff Writer