Post date: Jul 23, 2014 8:46:25 AM
By Danny Martin DMARTIN@NEWSMINER.COM
FAIRBANKS — Three Alaska Nanooks rifle team members competed last week in Granada, Spain, which is the same city they’ll be in September for the world championships.
Senior Ryan Anderson, junior Tim Sherry and redshirt freshman Sagen Maddalena participated in the Spain Grand Prix at the CEAR Juan Carlos I Range, the site of the International Shooting Sport Federation World Championships on Sept. 6-20.
“Going over to Granada this month was really important for our preparation for World Championships,” Anderson said in a University of Alaska Fairbanks release on Tuesday.
“It gives us that prior experience on the range so that when we come in to shoot in September, we will know exactly what to expect and can plan ahead of time what we can do in order to perform at the highest level we can,’’ he added.
Anderson and Sherry competed in all three rifle events while Maddalena took part in the air rifle match and qualified for her second international final of the summer.
Maddalena fired a score of 413.9 in the 40-shot women’s air rifle match, finishing in seventh place and three-tenths of a point ahead of the cut line. She placed seventh in the final and was one of two Americans to qualify in the top eight.
“The team we have in Alaska is a family,’’ said Maddalena, a natural resources management major from Groveland, California. “To be able to go shoot internationally and have your teammates by you, it helps a bunch. It makes you more comfortable and there’s not stress around because we know each other.”
Anderson turned in three top-15 finishes on the men’s side while Sherry joined him in the top 15 in one event.
Anderson nearly qualified for two individual finals, missing one by fractions of a point and another by a few points.
In the 50-meter prone match, the biological sciences major from Great Falls, Virginia took ninth place after recording a 622.5 score in the 60-shot competition. His mark was only fourth-tenths shy of eighth place.
In the 10-meter air rifle, Anderson placed 12th with a 620.2 during the 60-shot event, missing the final by just 3.1 points. He also competed in the 50-meter, three-position match, claiming 14th place with a 1,149 total in the 120-shot match that included 43 center shots.
“In shooting, especially when shooting outdoors, the conditions on different ranges will have different effects on how your bullet acts,” Anderson said.
“When shooting smallbore (3P) internationally, it is always at 50 meters and outdoors rather than 50 feet and indoors like in collegiate competition,’’ he continued. “We have to be able to assess changing wind and light conditions by looking at wind flags on the range and even mirages (the little wavy lines from heat) through spotting scopes.”
For Sherry, his week was highlighted by a 15th-place showing in the 50-meter, three-position event, which he shot a 1,146 with 45 centers. The reigning NCAA smallbore champion also finished 21st in prone (618.4) and 23rd in air rifle (611.2).
Sherry, Anderson and Maddalena return stateside to train before heading back to Spain for the world matches.
“With a summer like this, coming back to the university, we’re going to be on fire and we know it,’’ Maddalena said. “Talking to Tim and Ryan, we know we will be at the top but we have to keep our heads in the game.”
Former Nanook and Olympic gold medalist Matt Emmons registered qualifying scores in a pair of events last week in Granada.
Emmons led the field by .7 points after shooting a 627.4 and later took fifth in the individual final. He rounded out his week of competition with the top score in the three-position match, firing 1,173 with 43 centers. That mark was six points better than the next shooter and he would go one to place third in the final.