ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The No. 16 Navy rifle team fell in its season opening match on Saturday to No. 15 Akron by a score of 4,615 to 4,592. Shooting at the Bancroft Rifle Range, the Mids were defeated by a Zips team that set school records in air rifle and aggregate scoring.

Zach Gibson (Jr., Montrose, Colo.) led Navy's effort on the day with an aggregate score of 1,156. He started his day with a 574 result in smallbore before posting a 582 in air rifle.

"I am very disappointed in our performance today," said Navy head coach Bill Kelley. "We had people not doing what they were trained to do and it showed with scores that were significantly lower than what we shoot in practice. There are no excuses for shooting the way we did today."

In the smallbore portion of the competition, the Mids finished with 2,273 points. Gibson and Jodi Cull-Host (Jr., Los Alamos, N.M.) led the team with identical 574 scores. Dan Jonas (So., Allentown, N.J.) and Jordan DiPaola (So., Strasburg, Va.) rounded out the four counters for Navy as they recorded totals of 570 and 555, respectively.

Brandon Thompson (Sr., Shelbyville, Ky.) highlighted Navy's quartet of counters in air rifle as he posted a 583-point result. Gibson and Jonas followed him closely with scores of 582 and 581, respectively. Cull-Host was fourth on the team with a 573-point effort. The four counters combined to score 2,319 points.

As a non-starter, Erika Hoffman (Fr., Stuttgart, Germany) posted an air rifle score of 574 in her collegiate debut.

Akron was led in the competition by All-American Matt Chezem, who shot a 584 in smallbore and a score-record 595 in air rifle. His 1,179 aggregate was also a school record.

"Chezem had a great performance, but he's just one athlete," said Kelley. "They had a great team effort; we did not."

Navy will next be in action on Saturday, Oct. 11 with a home matchup versus the University of the Sciences. Following the competition against the Devils on Saturday, the No. 11 University of Memphis Tigers will take on the Mids on Sunday. Both matches will be hosted at the Bancroft Hall Rifle Range.