Post date: Mar 12, 2016 6:21:37 PM
By Danny Martin Dmartin@newsminer.com
FAIRBANKS—The Alaska Nanooks finished in fourth place in the team standings after Friday’s smallbore competition of the NCAA Rifle Championships in Akron, Ohio.
The Nanooks, ranked third in the latest College Rifle Coaches Association Poll, compiled 2,313 points in the Louis and Freda Stile Field House at the University of Akron. West Virginia leads with a 2,338 total and Texas Christian University holds second place at 2,333, and Murray State, of Kentucky, sits in third place at 2.329.
“We had some struggles,” Nanooks head coach Dan Jordan said in a University of Alaska Fairbanks press release on Friday.
“Nobody could come up with that one big score to help us out in the standings, and everyone seemed a bit flat,” Jordan continued. “Now, it’s a matter of putting today behind us and getting our heads in the right place. We need to put up a strong showing in the air gun (today).”
The NCAAs wrap up today with air rifle, which is scheduled to start at 6:15 a.m. AST. The finals are slated for 10:30 a.m. AST.
None of the five Nanooks in the NCAA competition advanced to the smallbore finals Friday.
Senior Tim Sherry, an All-American and the 2014 NCAA individual smallbore champion, led the Nanooks on Friday with a 16th-place score of 580. The native of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, hit the 10-point mark of the target 27 times and he had his best showing in the prone position, scoring a 99 in both rounds.
Redshirt junior Soren Butler scored a 579 to finish 20th among the 44 competitors. The All-American from Casselton, North Dakota, hit the 10-point mark a team-best 28 times and registered a 100 score during the second round of the prone position.
Redshirt sophomore Sagen Maddalena, from Groveland, California, placed 26th Friday with a 577 and freshman and Lathrop High School graduate JT Schnering placed 28th in NCAA debut.
Schnering and Maddalena each scored 577, but Maddalena had one more on the 10-point mark than Schnering did.
Luke Johnson placed 35th for the Nanooks, as the sophomore from Marysville, Pennsylvania, shot a 574 in his first NCAA event.
West Virginia defeated Alaska by two points (4,702-4,700) in the final team standings at last year’s NCAA Championships in the University of Alaska Fairbanks Patty Center.
TCU captured the team honor and the Nanooks were runners-up in this year’s Patriot Rifle Conference Championships on Feb. 6 at TCU’s range in Fort Worth, Texas.
West Virginia has a NCAA-record 17 national team championships. The Nanooks have captured 10 team titles in their history, winning in 1994, from 1999-2004 and 2006-2008.