The defending national champions will play a match in Memphis to start the season.
For most people, when they read that sentence, they assume the sport being played is football or basketball.
For some who are more in-tune with Tigers sports, they might immediately think soccer or tennis. Not many people would guess the sport that is actually being played: rifle.
There are just 28 colleges in the country that have an NCAA rifle program and Memphis is one of those schools. On Saturday, the Tigers will play host to the defending national champs and preseason No. 1 team in the country, the West Virginia Mountaineers.
Ahead of the match, The Daily Helmsman reached out to Nick Castrilli, who is the sports features editor for The Daily Athenaeum, WVU’s student newspaper, to tell the stories of one of the greatest collegiate programs you’ve probably never heard of.
“If I went around campus, many people would not know WVU has the most rifle national championships in NCAA history,” Castrilli said via email. “I can even go to the extent, many people would not know we have a rifle program. These athletes need more recognition for their skills.”
How the game works
So, how will Saturday’s match play out? To start, there are two disciplines: smallbore and air rifle.
Smallbore is always shot first with a .22 caliber rifle. Athletes will take 60 shots, divided evenly from three positions: standing, prone and kneeling, in that order. They will have 105 minutes to take all 60 of their shots and they can do so at their own pace, so long as they have finished within the time limit.
Air rifle is a little different. Competitors will still take 60 shots with a .177 caliber rifle, but they are all from the standing position and they have only 90 minutes to get their shots fired.
The target is 50 feet away from them for smallbore and 10 meters away for air rifle. If you hit the center of the target, that is worth 10 points. The ring just outside is worth nine, the ring outside of that is worth eight, etc., but both disciplines are scored the same.
Before the match, the coaches for each team will submit no less than four and no greater than five members of their team to be what’s known as a “counter.”
Counters are athletes whose scores will be considered when deciding the team’s score. The smallbore score and air rifle score will be added together to become an aggregate score. The highest four aggregate scores amongst counters will be added to give a team its score for the match and whichever team has the highest team score wins the match.
Despite only five people being designated as counters, all of the other team members still show up and shoot for individual accolades and rankings.
A hidden dynasty in Morgantown
The Mountaineers have had, quite frankly, a dynasty since the beginning of the sport.
The NCAA held its first championship in rifle in 1980, where West Virginia finished as the runners-up to Tennessee Tech. In the 44 years since, the Mountaineers claimed 20 team national titles and 9 more second place finishes. They also have 30 NCAA individual champions and have had 34 different representatives in the Olympics over the years.
Despite one of the most impressive resumes in the history of college athletics, Castrilli says that rifle is still not very popular, even in West Virginia, because of the nature of the sport.
“I believe that rifle is not as popular because it's not a physically demanding sport; rather, it's about precision,” he said. “People love the fast-paced and physical aspects of the sport which takes away from the nature of the rifle as a precision sport.”
As for the upcoming match, one of the names to watch for West Virginia is sophomore Ashlyn Blake.
“As a freshman last season, she saw a performance in the National Championship after the team trailed, propelling them to a win,” Castrilli said. “She posted a career high on the biggest stage.”
For the Tigers, it’ll all be about senior Gabriela Zynch. She’s coming off an incredible campaign, highlighted by a second-team selection to the CRCA’s All America roster in smallbore and two national titles in the Open and Junior categories at the USA Shooting Championships in June, where she outshot Blake in the Junior final.
The Tigers will look to make a statement against the defending champs in their first match of the year at 8 a.m. Saturday at R.F. Fogelman Rifle Range, which is right next to South Hall.
Nick New can be contacted at ntnew@memphis.edu.
