ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy rifle team opened its season on Saturday morning with a 4,616 to 4,301 victory over John Jay in an abridged version of the regularly scheduled MAC Invitational. With weather wreaking havoc for travel, Akron and VMI called an audible in their match plans and instead shot their own one-on-one competition at Akron. Senior captain Jodi Cull-Host (Los Alamos, N.M.) led the Midshipmen in the victory at the Bancroft Hall Rifle Range with a match-high 1,162 aggregate score.

In the smallbore portion of Saturday's match, Navy recorded a four-scorer total of 2,281. Dan Jonas (Allentown, N.J.) edged out Cull-Host for the high score with a 575-point performance, one point better than Cull-Host. Zach Gibson (Sr., Montrose, Colo.) was third on Navy with a 567 score, while Thomas Sarant (So., Massapequa, N.Y.) and Josh Watson (Fr., Enterprise, Ala.) rounded out the Mids' starting lineup with scores of 565 and 564, respectively.

"I was happy with the improvements that we saw out of Sarant and Watson in smallbore today," remarked head coach Bill Kelley. "They stepped to the line and scored better than they have in practice leading up to the match."

Navy closed out the competition versus John Jay with a 2,335 score in air rifle. Cull-Host overtook Jonas for top billing in this portion of the match with a three-point head-to-head win, 588 to 585. Gibson was the Mids' third-highest scorer with a 584-point performance. Brandon Pippin (Jr., Nashville, Tenn.) recorded a score of 583 as a member of Navy's air rifle starting lineup. Sarant and Watson each registered 580-point scores.

"Our air rifle performance was only okay today," said Kelley. "We were off from our practice numbers and today is not where we need to be. Every one of our counters shoots 590 in practice, so we need to see that if we are to succeed in reaching our goals this season. Maybe today we were shaking off the first match rust.

"We have the University of the Sciences coming up next Saturday and we're looking forward to coming out and improving our performance in match competition."

The Mids will next be in action on Saturday, Oct. 10 at the Bancroft Hall Rifle Range with an 8 a.m. contest versus the Devils of U. of the Sciences.