Rifle Collects 28 GARC Honors
February 27, 2015 08:56 PM | General
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Senior Ziva Dvorsak earned her first GARC honors, collecting Senior of the Year, Shooter of the Year, All-GARC First Team Air Rifle, Second Team Smallbore and All-GARC First Team Combined Score.
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Eight members of the No. 1-ranked West Virginia University rifle team collected a combined 28 all-conference honors tonight at the Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) Championships Banquet, in Oxford, Mississippi.
The awards were presented this evening before the 2015 GARC Championships begin this weekend, February 28-March 1, at the Patricia C. Lamar Readiness Center. The Mountaineers (11-1, 8-0 GARC) will shoot for their sixth straight GARC Championship title.
SeniorZiva Dvorsak earned her first GARC honors, collecting Senior of the Year and Shooter of the Year. She also landed on the All-GARC First Team Air Rifle, Second Team Smallbore and All-GARC First Team Combined Score squads.
The Ljubljana, Slovenia, native leads the team in air rifle with a 596 average, and holds 579 smallbore and 1175 overall averages.
“These are great honors for Ziva to finish her senior year with,” said coach Jon Hammond. “They really let her end strong in the conference.”
Freshman Elizabeth Gratz earned her first conference honors tonight, taking the GARC Rookie of the Year award and First Team Smallbore, First Team Air Rifle and First Team Combined Score honors. The Sigel, Illinois, native averages 580 smallbore, 592 air rifle and 1172 combined scores.
Gratz was also named WVU’s GARC Scholar Athlete of the Year.
“Elizabeth’s awards are a great reflection of the scores she shot all year,” said Hammond. “She had a really good balance all season and really contributed to the team.”
Senior Maren Prediger earned her third All-GARC First Team Air Rifle honor tonight.
She followed Dvorsak with a 594 air rifle average this season. She also earned All-GARC Second Team Combined Score, with a 1171 season average and made the All-GARC Honorable Mention Smallbore Team.
Junior Michael Bamsey landed his first conference awards with All-GARC First Team Smallbore, Air Rifle and Combined Score awards in his first season at WVU, averaging 581 smallbore, 591 air rifle and 1173 combined averages.
“We had almost all of our counters come back this year,” Hammond said. “We added some new faces as well. Both Michael and Elizabeth shot great scores this year. They’ll be excited with All-American honors coming as well. They’ve all made the selection for NCAA Championships extremely hard this year. I think that they’ve pushed each other to improve all season.”
Junior Garrett Spurgeon earned All-GARC First Team Smallbore and Combined Score honors and also made the All-GARC Second Team Air Rifle list. The honors are the third career smallbore and combined score recognitions for Spurgeon, and his second air rifle award.
Spurgeon averages 582 smallbore and 591 air rifle this season, with a 1173 combined score average.
Senior Thomas Kyanko was named All-GARC First Team Smallbore after leading the Mountaineers with a 593 average this season. He also earned All-GARC Second Team Combined Score for his 1173 average, and all-conference honorable mention in the air rifle discipline.
Junior Patrick Sunderman and sophomore Jean-Pierre Lucas were named to the All-GARC Second Team Smallbore and Combined Score lists. Lucas also earned all-conference honorable mention in air rifle, while Sunderman earned his first All-GARC First Team Air Rifle honor. The honors were the first of Lucas’ career.
“These awards give them a lot of confidence going into the end of the year,” said Hammond. “It’s really good recognition. They really dominated the individual awards. At the same time, that doesn’t mean anything for the remaining matches. They have to go and own every point that they shoot in the following matches, starting with the championships tomorrow.”
The Mountaineers will defend their GARC Championship title tomorrow, shooting the smallbore relay at 8 a.m. ET. They will continue with the air rifle competition on Sunday, March 1, at 9 a.m. ET.
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