3/14/2002 - Rifle
Navy Rifle Competing In 11th-Straight NCAA Championship
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The Navy rifle team will be competing in its 11th-consecutive NCAA Championship this weekend, taking to the range in the smallbore and air rifle disciplines at Murray (Ky.) State. Navy finished eighth in the competition last year, competing only in smallbore rifle (4567).
?One thing that?s impressed me in the last couple of weeks of training has been our team chemistry,? said third-year Navy rifle coach Bill Kelley, whose squad took home an eighth-place finish at the 2001 NCAA Championship. ?The way the team is working together, with everybody helping each other out, is something that we?ve tried to establish here at Navy for several years.
?We are sending an interesting mix of shooters,? noted Kelley, who will bring a pair of freshmen and seniors, as well as a sophomore to Murray. ?Once they get on the line and shoot, they shouldn?t have the individual pressures to succeed because they can depend on each other to perform as a team. Our goal will be to remain competitive throughout the weekend, and it will not be easy. There is a lot of tough competition in this championship, and on paper, we are one of the top-six teams in the country. If we shoot the way we are capable of shooting, there is no doubt in my mind that we?ll be in the mix.?
Navy (10-1), who only qualified in smallbore competition last year, shot marks of 4635 and 1544 victory in smallbore and air rifle, respectively, in its qualifying match against Duquesne Feb. 9. The scores were not far off the school?s smallbore (4638) and air rifle (1553), and the aggregate score of 6179 was just four points shy of rewriting the school record books.
Navy's four-man smallbore team will consist of seniors Luke Shank (Fort Wayne, Ind.) and Bill Tolson (Oak Harbor, Wash.), as well as freshmen Mike Miller (Albuquerque, N.M.) and Matt Albright (Shelton, Conn.) Shank and Tolson each shot 1164 in the qualifying match, while Miller and Albright had point totals of 1160 and 1147, respectively.
Shank, who earned top honors for his smallbore performance by virtue of having a higher center-target count than Tolson, also garnered similar accolades for his 391 performance in air rifle. Miller also had a 391 mark in the discipline, while Marta Jung (So./Reno, Nev.) (386) and Albright (376) round out the four-man air rifle team for the Mids.
Shank and Miller will shoot in Friday's individual air rifle championship, while the team will compete Saturday. Alaska-Fairbanks, Xavier, Kentucky, Murray State and Tennessee Tech all qualified in both guns for the championship, with Coast Guard (smallbore), West Virginia (smallbore), Nevada (air rifle) and Army (air rifle) all qualifying in one gun apiece.
