Photo courtesy of NMSU Aggie Trap and Skeet

Members of the Aggie Trap and Skeet team gather for a group photo during team activities.

Read the Spanish translation of this article.

Founded three years ago, the Aggie Trap and Skeet team is pioneering shotgun sports at New Mexico State University, bringing awareness to the lifelong sport of shooting, and establishing themselves as the only collegiate team in New Mexico. 

Competing individually in six different shotgun events (trap, trap doubles, skeet doubles, sporting clays, and super sporting clays), while also aiming to achieve a strong overall team score, practice and training maintains a noteworthy dynamic between members, working with each other alongside coaching. The team also accommodates varying experience levels, divided into Junior Varsity (JV) and Varsity squads.  

“When we train [JV], we usually pull our varsity guys out of their practice [to] work with them; building up those fundamentals,” President Matthew Nowell said. “We’re [Matthew and Nathan] in charge of making those squads and making putting people in positions, and so we can kind of look at practices and to see who works next to each other better and where that rhythm is better developed.” 

As for competition, success in trap and skeet relies heavily on mental headspace and extreme focus. Shooting in the dead silence, with the pressure of trying to shoot a perfect score and the partial outcome of the team’s overall outcome riding on your shoulders, can bring about anxiety for many shooters.  

“The nerves can get to you, the more and more you shoot a perfect score [25/25] the easier it does get. But your biggest challenge in the sport is definitely between your ears, just focusing on everything you know,” Nathan Lewis, team founder and communications officer, said.  

Even though the team is new to this area of New Mexico, the state still offers facilities where regional conference-sized shooting meets could be held, such as the Whittington Center in Raton. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough teams in the area to do so, therefore having to travel to east Texas or California is not uncommon for the NMSU team.  

Going hand in hand with distance struggles, funding has also arisen as an issue. As with most smaller club teams on campus, expenses tend to pile up quickly, especially between registration fees and equipment. So, bringing awareness to the team while working to expand within the state has become more crucial than ever. 

Many team members grew up with shooting and have fallen in love with the sport over the course of their lives. But some are newer to competition, like team member Kendal Ackron, who came to NMSU as a freshman last fall.  

“I don’t want to be the kind of person that just stays in their dorm all day, so I’m going to Christian Challenge, and I meet [Matthew] here, and he’s like, you should join this team, [and] I [had] never done that before. So, I bought a shotgun, and it’s been great ever since,” Ackron said.  

For those who grew up shooting, guns have become a normal way of life. However, in today’s political climate, there has been some controversy surrounding gun sports appropriation – especially for youth shooters. Beyond their own experiences, creating the next generation of safe gun owners has been a lingering topic of importance for many on the team.  

“My high school experience was like having those battles with the political side of things… and in today’s political climate, guns aren’t really seen as appropriate for children, and so being able to be part of that safe and knowledgeable group of people, and being able to help raise that next generation of responsible gun ownership really just kept me going and wanting to pursue further into college as well,” Nowell said.

Ahead of the March 2026 National Championships in San Antonio, Texas, Aggie Trap and Skeet will be hosting a sporting clays competition, “Guns Up Aggies,” and are hosting a raffle in which they will draw winners to receive a different gun every day on March 15-19.

More information about the team and fundraiser can be found on their Instagram page: @aggie_clay_target_team