Rifle: WVU To Compete In NCAA Championship
March 13, 2008 11:58 AM | General
March 13, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University rifle team will compete in the 2008 NCAA Rifle Championships March 14-15, at West Point Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.
WVU will compete against Alaska-Fairbanks, Kentucky, Nebraska, Nevada-Reno, Texas Christian, Army and Navy in its first NCAA Championship appearance since 2002.
Senior Lafe Kunkel, and freshmen Brandi Eskew, Tommy Santelli and Kyle Smith will compete in the smallbore event while Kunkel, Eskew, Santelli and freshman Andy Lamson will shoot in the air rifle event.
In addition, Lamson qualified to shoot in smallbore as an individual as all team members and additional individual qualifiers will compete for individual NCAA titles.
“I'll be looking to Lafe to lead the team being the senior, but our freshmen have showed their quality in the last month or so and I think they will be more than ready to put in a good performance,” says WVU Coach Jon Hammond.
Individual and team competitions in smallbore three-position will be held on Friday, March 14, with individual and team competitions in air rifle to be held on Saturday, March 15. The overall team champion will be determined by combining the smallbore and air rifle team totals into one aggregate score.
“I think they are all ready, and dealing with the nerves and the excitement will again be the key to success,” adds Hammond.
WVU holds the most NCAA Rifle Championships since 1980 with 13. Alaska-Fairbanks has won a total of nine and is two-time defending national champions.
West Virginia finished third at the 2008 Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) championship with a team aggregate score of 4,626 on February 24. Hammond was named GARC Coach of the Year, after leading the squad to an 8-3 record this season.
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