ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Junior Michael Zanti is slated to represent the Navy rifle program (3-10) at the 2021 NCAA Rifle Championships. Zanti will compete as an individual for the smallbore national championship on Friday morning where he will shoot in the first of two relays starting at 9 a.m. from the Converse Hall on the campus of Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio.
 
This will be Zanti's third appearance at the national championships and first as an individual. During the 2019 and 2020 events, the Midshipmen qualified as a team where he was in Navy's starting lineup each season. In 2019, Zanti finished with a smallbore score of 573 points and scored 586 points in air rifle to finish the championship with an aggregate total of 1,159 points. Zanti was unable to compete at the 2020 championship after the event was canceled the day before competition due to COVID-19.
 
Zanti has paced the Midshipmen throughout the 2020-21 season as he bolstered a season average of 581.1 in smallbore and a 1,173.2 in aggregate scoring to lead the team. Heading into his final competition of the season, Zanti's smallbore average ranks third overall in the program's record book with his aggregate mark ranking second all-time. In air rifle, he finished with an average of 592.1 which was second on the team and that mark ranks second in school history behind only teammate Mark Amdahl who finished the year just 0.05 ahead of Zanti.
 
During the 2020-21 season, Zanti set all of his career highs during the 2020 portion of the campaign with his strong start. The junior started the year with a career-high in air rifle with a 596 and also posted a career-high of 1,180 in overall scoring against VMI on Sept. 26. Zanti shot a 584 in smallbore against the Keydets, which was a career-high at the time, but he broke that mark to finish out the calendar year on Nov. 21 against Kentucky with a 585.
 
To start the year, Zanti scored at least 580 points in smallbore during five of the first six events of the season where he also scored at least 1,170 points in overall scoring five times during that span. For the year, Zanti reached the 580-point benchmark in smallbore nine times in 11 appearances while scoring 1,170 points overall seven times.
 
Zanti is joined by individual qualifiers Allison Henry and Matias Kiuru of Murray State, Kyle Kutz of Army and North Carolina State's Makenzie Sheffield. The five individual qualifiers will also compete for the individual title against Air Force, Alaska Fairbanks, Kentucky, Memphis, Nebraska, Ole Miss, TCU and West Virginia who are competing for the team national championship.
 
Following the opening relay at 9 a.m., the second relay will begin at 12:30 p.m. with the individual finals beginning at 4 p.m. on Friday.