MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The No. 1-ranked West Virginia University rifle team won its sixth straight Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) Championships title with a 4709 aggregate score, today, at Mississippi’s Patricia C. Lamar Readiness Center, in Oxford, Mississippi.

 

The Mountaineers went into today’s competition tied at 2323 with Kentucky after yesterday’s smallbore competition. They dominated in today’s air rifle competition with a 38-point win over the second-place Wildcats (2348), shooting a nation-best 2386 score.

 

Now owning nine GARC championships titles, WVU continues to hold a conference record for most championships and most consecutive championships won (6).

 

“Today was a great day for us,” said coach Jon Hammond. “It’s not too often you get a chance to shoot a national record. We’ve had the ability this year to do it, and today it all came together. We had a lot of great scores, but the four that counted were exceptional. Overall, 2386 is an incredible score for four people. I’m really proud of the team for putting that together, and I also was proud of how they shot today after some struggles yesterday.”

 

All nine conference teams shot in today’s air rifle competition, and WVU (11-1, 8-0 GARC) counted for five of the eight individual finalists.

 

Junior Garrett Spurgeon shot 594 (99-97-100-100-100-98) in the open air rifle relay and entered the final in fourth place. He won the air rifle title with a 207.1 final score. Spurgeon is the second consecutive Mountaineer to win the GARC air rifle title. Senior Maren Prediger won last year’s title with 593 in the open relay and 206.7 in the individual final.

 

“Garrett has shot a lot of finals over the last few years,” Hammond said. “He was satisfied to pull that out. He was up against the top-three shooters from NCAAs last year. It got pretty close toward the end, but he kept it together really well.”

 

Prediger scored 597 (100-100-100-98-99-100) for second place in the open relay and 186.3 in the final for third overall.

 

Sophomore Jean-Pierre Lucas’s 592, sixth-place air rifle score yesterday earned him a spot in the individual final today. He earned fourth place with a 165.6 score.

 

Junior Michael Bamsey followed Prediger in third place in the open relay with a 596 score, one short of his career high. His 144.0 score in the final landed him a fifth-place finish overall.

 

Senior Ziva Dvorsak paced the Mountaineers in air rifle in the open relay, shooting a career-high 599 (99-100-100-100-100-100) score; she entered the final in first place. She shot 78.0 in the final, placing eighth overall.

 

Senior Thomas Kyanko completed WVU’s counting squad with a 590 score, placing 10th overall.

 

“It’s been an incredible run,” said Hammond. “We really like coming down here to shoot. It’s something the team enjoys doing. It’s great competition, but we always show up. At the same time, we have to stay focused on NCAAs coming up. We will look back on this after the season is over.”

 

Of note, because of equipment failure, smallbore final scores were not available yesterday. Spurgeon placed third with 442.9, and Prediger placed fourth with 431.3. Lucas finished sixth with 407.9, while Dvorsak placed seventh with 397.0.

 

Kentucky’s Connor Davis finished first in the smallbore final with a 456.6 score.

 

WVU will head into two weeks of preparation before the team defends its back-to-back and nation-best 16th national title at the NCAA Championships, March 13-14, at the E.F. Horton Rifle Range and Patty Center, in Fairbanks, Alaska.