Consider the clay target. Roughly four and a quarter inches across, hurled into the open air at better than 40 mph, it exists as a whole object for only a few seconds before it either shatters or sails away untouched. Multiply that fleeting moment by hundreds over five weeks, ask several hundred college students to meet it again and again, and you have the makings of a season. The 2026 spring campaign of the USA College Clay Target League has now drawn to its close.
The numbers tell the first part of the story. This spring, 626 student-athletes took part, drawn from 66 colleges and universities across the country and supported by dozens of coaches, team staff and volunteers. The nonprofit league offers trap, skeet, sporting clays and five-stand competition as an extracurricular activity to postsecondary schools, and its reach continues to widen.
“More and more colleges have adopted the League’s program as a way to attract and engage students,” USA College Clay Target League President John Nelson said. “It has been great to see the scholarship and education opportunities that these institutions are now providing their students.”
In trap, the standout turned in a season that defined completeness. Justin Jerome of Alfred State College in New York posted a perfect 25-target average across the competition, claiming both the Top Overall and Top Male awards. Behind him by a narrow margin was Jordan Lewis of St. Cloud Technical and Community College in Minnesota. Lewis missed exactly one of the 250 targets she attempted over the five-week trap season, finishing with a 29.4-target average that earned her the Top Female award and second place overall.
The skeet field produced its own headliner in Brock Mosher of Bethany Lutheran College in Minnesota, whose 24.7-target season average secured Top Overall and Top Male honors. In addition, Hannah Hopper of Illinois College took Top Female in the discipline with a 24-target average.
Then the sporting clays results arrived, and a familiar name sat atop them. Mosher again. The Bethany Lutheran shooter added the sporting clays Top Overall title to his skeet haul with a 48.2-target season average. Bailey Liska of Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania led all women in the discipline with a 48-target season average.
Full results for all three disciplines are posted on the league’s website, and teams tracking their progress through a season can use the Shooter Performance Tracker, accessible via an AMS profile and updated weekly. Scores and rankings are sortable by conference and league.
The calendar now turns. The fall season opens in September with another five-week competition window, and it carries higher stakes. Fall results build toward the 2026 USA College Clay Target League National Championship at the end of October, a premier event in collegiate shotgun competition.
For now the targets have stopped flying. In September they resume.
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