WVU’s Garrett Spurgeon quick and accurate shooter

Post date: Mar 15, 2015 2:44:16 PM

He was a part of the Mountaineers third-straight and 17th overall national championship team and also took home the NCAA Championship’s Top Overall Performer award.

However, another honor Spurgeon can lay claim to, completely unrelated to the awards handed out after the final competition on Saturday, is being the quickest shooter while maintaining his eagle-eyed accuracy.

“All year I’ve shot at a fast pace, that’s kind of my game,” Spurgeon said.

During Saturday’s third relay of the air rifle in the Patty Center gymnasium, Spurgeon displayed his ability to go rapid fire mode, finishing the round faster than everyone shooting in the relay, while shooting a 596, tying him for the top score during the relay.

He finished nearly 10 minutes faster than the second fastest shooter.

“I just rolled through, halfway through I looked down and thought, ‘Holy cow, this is the fastest I’ve ever shot,’” he said.

For Spurgeon, there’s more to it than his speedy shooting. All shooters are given 15 minutes before the competitions take place to prep their sights, but you’ll usually find Spurgeon out there before anyone else looking to find his rhythm.

“I was up there a good while before sighters, just holding to find my position and I found it,” he said. “Sighters were really good and when the match started, I was already in a rhythm, it didn’t take me any time to get started.”

Spurgeon’s 596 was the second highest air rifle score on the day, trailing Mountaineer teammate Maren Prediger by two shots.

“It’s all about finding that rhythm and it helps that I found it before the match even started.

His score of 596 also tied for his second-best shooting output of the season. He shot a season-best 597 on Jan. 31, also in Alaska, when the Mountaineers were in Fairbanks for a regular-season match.

*****on other news! *****

The rifle range at Murray State University in Kentucky is named for Pat Spurgin — who in the Interior is known as Pat Pitney, the budget director for Alaska Gov. Bill Walker.

Pitney, when she was known as Pat Spurgin, shot for Murray State from 1983-87. In between her freshman and sophomore seasons for the Racers, she won the women’s air rifle gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“I was so young when I won the gold medal, I was only 18,’’ Pitney recalled Friday at the UAF Patty Center, where she watching the smallbore matches of the NCAA Rifle Championships. “All the fanfare and the accolades and all the fame ... all of that was like icing on the cake,’’ Pitney said. “So it was like I had done what I had done, and you didn’t expect hall of fame honors and range named after you.

“It was just like ‘Well, that’s cool!’, versus when you go in to win the match, to win the medal,’’ she added. “You’re planning on that, because the rest of this stuff comes along with doing really well.” Pitney visited her namesake range during last year’s NCAA Championships at Murray State.

“It was nice to be down there watching it last year,’’ said Pitney, who reunited at the meet with Elvis Green, who coached her at Murray State.

She met with members of this year’s squad for Murray State, which placed eighth overall in its first appearance as a complete team in the NCAA Championship since 2011.

Pitney’s husband, Randy, is a former athletic director and rifle coach for the Nanooks. Their daughter, Crystal, competed for the Nanooks cross country and Nordic ski teams from 2010-13 and earned a business degree from UAF. Their son, Logan, graduated last December from UAF with a chemistry degree.

Pitney, before being appointed to Gov. Walker’s staff, worked as the vice chancellor for administration for the previous six years. She was an employee in the University of Alaska system.

Contact sports reporter/copy editor Jaryd Cline at 459-7581. Sports editor Danny Martin contributed to this report.