COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The seventh-ranked Navy rifle team (9-7, 3-4 in the GARC) completed competition at day one of the NCAA Championship Friday, totaling 2,303 points in the smallbore relay at Air Force's Clune Arena.
Kentucky claimed the top spot in smallbore on the day, and sits in first place in the team standings, with 2,360 points while Alaska came in second with 2,351 points. TCU tallied 2,350 points to finish the first day of competition in third place, followed by Air Force at 2,342 points and Ole Miss which totaled a smallbore mark of 2,337 points.
Rounding out the field, in respective order, on Friday was Murray State (2,326 points), West Virginia (2,320 points) and the Mids with the aforementioned total of 2,303.
"We had a bit of a rough day on the range today," said head coach
Mike Anti. "I don't care how good of a team you are, there are just days when things just do not come together. Unfortunately, today was our day to go through that. I will say that I am very proud of each of our athletes, they worked on every shot and never gave up. Today is in the past and we are looking forward to tomorrow's competition."
Team captain
Michael Zanti (Sr., Norfolk, Va.) claimed the top score on the day for Navy, finishing with 581 points. The senior standout finished just ahead of
Marleigh Duncan (Fr., Wake Forest, N.C.) who tallied a 576-point mark in the smallbore relay.
Clarissa Layland (So., Granbury, Texas) finished with the third-best total of the day for Navy, totaling a score of 574 which ranked a point above her season average in smallbore. Senior standout
Mark Amdahl (Albuquerque, N.M.) added a 572-point mark to the Mids' total while
Stephanie Milvain (Fr., Matthews, N.C.) posted 571 points to round out the Navy starting five.
Kentucky's Will Shaner claimed the NCAA Smallbore Individual Championship, posting a score of 459.7 in the smallbore final.
Competition is scheduled to resume 11 a.m. Saturday with the air rifle portion of the championship. The Midshipmen ranked as the sixth-best team in the nation this season in air rifle, boasting an average score of 2,321.15 points per match in the discipline.
