Post date: May 24, 2014 2:03:31 PM
By Tim O’Donnell TODONNELL@NEWSMINER.COM
FAIRBANKS — A year after not even traveling to the NCAA Championships, Alaska Nanooks rifle sophomore Tim Sherry not only won the NCAA smallbore title but also earned three All-American awards.
Now the Highlands Ranch, Colorado, native will be shooting at the 2014 International Shooting Sport Federation World Championship in September in Spain.
Sherry qualified for the world championship with a runner-up showing in the 50-meter, three-position match at the USA Shooting World Championship Selection match on May 20-22 at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Sherry will also be going to Suhl, Germany, to shoot in the inaugural ISSF Junior World Cup on Monday through June 1. Sherry is scheduled to be the only American to shoot in all three men’s disciplines at the Junior World Cup — prone, air rifle, and three-position matches.
“With Tim making the world championship team, it’s a perfect end to his already successful season,” head coach Dan Jordan said Friday in a University of Alaska Fairbanks press release. “He has been shooting well all year and this is a great performance to lead up to the international season over the summer.”
Sherry fired a three-day score of 3,508 at Fort Benning. He finished with a score of 1,164 on the first day, finishing sixth in the individual final. On the second day, Sherry scored a 1,167 and placed fifth in the final. Sherry turned in a score of 1,163 on the third and final day and finished second overall.
Former Nanook and Olympic gold medalist Matt Emmons won the three-position match by 17 points over Sherry. Emmons, who shot for the Nanooks from 1999-2003, also won the prone match last week.
Emmons turned in to the top scores on the first and final days of the three-position match while firing the second-best score on the second day. Emmons also won the individual final on the first two days.
Emmons and Sherry will shoot at the ISSF World Cup Maribor in Slovenia on June 13-21; the inaugural Grand Prix International CEAR Juan Carlo in Granada, Spain on July 16-20, and the World Championship in Granada from Sept. 6-20.
Junior Ryan Anderson missed qualifying for the world championship, finishing fourth in the three-position match with a score of 3,505. Michael McPahil earned the final world championship spot for the United States with a score of 3,506.
Joe Hein, who shot for the Nanooks from 2001-05, finished fifth overall with a score of 3,497 while outgoing Nanooks senior Mike Liuzza finished eighth with a score of 3,483.
Along with Sherry, current Nanooks Anderson and freshman Sagen Maddalena have qualified for the world championship.
“With three from the team already going (to the world championship) and hopefully a fourth later on (Lorelie Stanfield — World Junior Championships), it’s going to give them a lot of confidence and familiarity,” Jordan said. “They will be able to rely on each other for support just like they have done all season.”
Anderson won a shoot-off to claim third place in the air rifle match while Maddalena, who redshirted in 2013-14 with the Nanooks, took second in the women’s air rifle program.