Courtesy photo Coach Jack Makdad (far left) and his 2026 Juniata College clay shooting club team are part of history.

HUNTINGDON — Juniata College marked a major milestone in the return of its Collegiate Clay Shooting Club last week, hosting its first home competition, the 2026 Pennsylvania Clay Club Collegiate Clay Championship, at Shenecoy Manor.

The club is led by coach Jack Makdad (1985), an experienced competitive shooter who brings decades of involvement in the sport. He is joined by assistant coach, Mark Saussure.

“This is one of the few true lifetime sports,” Makdad said. “You can start young and continue competing for decades. Bringing it back to Juniata is about creating opportunity for students who already shoot and for those who want to learn something new.”

Collegiate clay shooting includes disciplines such as trap, skeet, and sporting clays, where athletes use shotguns to break clay targets launched at varying angles and speeds. Competitions emphasize precision, consistency, and mental focus, with scoring based on the number of targets successfully hit.

“I have greatly enjoyed watching the club grow and come together,” said the club’s faculty advisor, Dennis Johnson (1954), Blechschmidt Professor of Environmental Science. “Coach Makdad brings a lot of experience and energy to the group and I look forward to the coming years.”

The inaugural event was designed to determine the top teams and shooters at the collegiate level. Three teams, Juniata College, Mount Aloysius and the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, brought 29 athletes to the line for trap, skeet, and sporting clays. Juniata took two of the top five individual scores. The Eagles’ Mason Roan tied for third place with a score of 131, and team captain Trevor Burkett took fifth place with a score of 129. Roan took second place overall in sporting clays.

“You’ll see athletes of all abilities competing successfully,” Makdad said. “It’s about focus, discipline, and technique–traits that translate far beyond the range.”

Safety and structure are central to the program. Juniata’s existing firearm storage protocols through campus public safety will support the team, alongside additional secure storage and transportation procedures. Students follow established safety standards and training practices common across collegiate shooting programs.

After competing against the U.S. Naval Academy and Mount Aloysius at the Whitetail Preserve near Berwick this past March, Juniata will next compete at the Scholastic Clay Target Program’s Pennsylvania State Skeet Championship on Saturday at home.