AKRON, Ohio – Following the first day of competition at the Great American Rifle Conference Championship, Navy rifle (10-5) sits in seventh place with a score of 2,298 points after smallbore competition concluded on Friday.
In a tight pack in the middle of the team standings, Navy is just 11 points behind third-place Kentucky.
"Today we had a bit of a struggle in smallbore," head coach
Mike Anti said. "Most of our shooters were just slightly below their average, which unfortunately does not add up to a good team score. We find ourselves a few points behind going into tomorrow, but with a good team effort we should be able to catch most of the teams ahead of us."
Torrance Kang (So., Columbia, Md.) led the Midshipmen on day one with a 578 in smallbore to finish tied for 14th in the field. The Navy pair of
Josh Watson (Sr., Enterprise, Ala.) and
Kestrel Kuhne (Jr., Everett, Pa.) were tied for 28th overall out of 78 shooters after notching match 574s.
Mark Amdahl (Fr., Albuquerque, N.M.) was just behind in a tie for 33rd with a 573. As a non-starter, Amdahl matched his second-best smallbore score of the season.
Rounding out the Navy shooters was
Daniel Enger (So., Walla Walla, Wash.) in a tie for 35th with a 572, followed by
Michael Zanti (Fr., Norfolk, Va.) – who is tied for 40th with a 570 – and
Gabriella Mayes (Rio Rancho, N.M.) fired a 569 to finish tied for 47th. The Midshipmen's counting scores toward their smallbore score came from Kang, Kuhne, Watson and Enger.
Friday was just the second time all season that Navy did not surpass 2,300 points in smallbore. The only other time the Midshipmen missed the 2,300 mark was on Jan. 19 against North Carolina State when they totaled 2,299 points in smallbore.
West Virginia leads the field after smallbore with a team score of 2,342 points and Nebraska is second with a score of 2,319 points. Kentucky rounds out the top three with a total of 2,309 points.
Ginny Thrasher of West Virginia led all shooters in smallbore following a score of 591 and she was the lone shooter to break the 590 mark. The Mountaineers had the top-two smallbore shooters in the field after Morgan Phillips shot a 588. However, in the final round, Phillips bested Thrasher, 461.0-460.3
The air rifle portion of the GARC Championship is set to take place on Saturday starting at 8 a.m. at Stile Athletics Field House in Akron, Ohio.
