Shotgun team repeats third-place Division 3 showing at ACUI Championships in Texas

Sunday, March 16

San Antonio, Texas

Liberty University Club Sports

ACUI Collegiate Clay Target Championships

Shotgun team repeats third-place Division 3 showing at ACUI Championships in Texas

3/25/2025 6:17:00 PM | Shotgun

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Liberty earned the third-place tie-breaker in a six-discipline shootoff against Louisiana State University.

Gallery: (3-25-2025) ACUI National Championships

Liberty University's shotgun team tied for third with Louisiana State in the High Overall Award category out of 31 Division 3 teams at last week's ACUI Collegiate Clay Target Championships at the National Shooting Sports Complex in San Antonio, Texas. The Flames and Lady Flames totaled 2,728 points to finish behind only Bethel (Minn.) University (2,753) and Drury (Mo.) University (2,739) out of a total of 3,000 targets.

"We definitely met and exceeded expectations, shooting through really tough conditions with high winds all weekend," Head Coach Jacob Davis said, noting the team matched its third-place showing from last spring after winning its first D3 national championship in 2023. "The competition has been getting stronger every year and was stronger again this year, a little stiffer than we expected. The two teams that beat us were very good teams. The quality was definitely there, but our nine shooters all did very well."

The Flames won a tie-breaker for third place in a mini shootoff that covered all six sporting clay disciplines.

"We did really well in that, and beat them by 13 points, so we blew them away," Davis said. "They counted the top five scorers from each discipline, for a total of 195 targets. We broke 154 of 195 targets in the shootoff and they shot 141."

In the tournament scoring for the six disciplines, the Flames placed second to LSU (437) in Sporting Clays with 435 points — paced by freshman Ryan Doyle's round of 92, senior captain Matthew Daniels (89), senior Dalton Krossman (87) and junior Mark Yoder (84) — and second to Montreat (N.C.) College (460) in Super Sporting Clays (459), led by freshman Jared Moore (95), Daniels, and Doyle (92) and Krossman and senior Harrison Russell (90). Liberty also came in third in Doubles Skeet with 459 points with Krossman and senior Nathaneal Hagy both shooting rounds of 94, followed by Moore (93), freshman Mattox Purdham (90), and Daniels (88). The Flames finished ninth in the Skeet competition with 474 points, ninth in Doubles Trap with 428, and 10th in Trap with 473.

Krossman, the Flames' team captain, made the All-American Honorable Mentions list based on his High Overall Average score, which placed him 67th out of 776 shooters.

Doyle broke a three-way tie for second place in the Sporting Clays' B class by placing second in a shootoff to earn third place in the class while Moore's 95 total in Super Sporting Clays tied him for third in the Open class of that event. He also placed second in his shootoff, giving him fourth place in the class overall.

By Ted Allen/Staff Writer; Video edited by Reagan Underwood/Club Sports Video & Media Assistant