Complete Scores
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It was a tough day on the range for the fifth-ranked Alaska Nanooks rifle team, who dropped the third and final road match of their current Lower-48 tour to the third-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers 4676-4626 on Friday afternoon.
WVU outgunned Alaska 2358-2339 in air rifle and 2318-2287 in smallbore. The loss drops the Nanooks to 6-5 on the season.
"Today was a little rough for the team," said head coach
Dan Jordan. "I think the long road trip and back-to-back matches started to catch up with them (the team) a little. Last night we drove through a nasty snowstorm, which took us quite a bit longer than expected and put us into the hotel late. Everyone was mentally exhausted."
The Mountaineers proved stingy hosts, taking the top four spots in the air rifle relay and the top five in smallbore. The hosts had a three-way tie for first in air rifle as Justin Pentz, Thomas Kyanko and Michael Kulbacki each shot a 590. WVU's Amy Bock was fourth (588) and Alaska freshaman
Ryan Anderson rounded out the top-five firing a 587 as the Nanooks' top shooter on the day.
Sophomore Michael Liuzza was second with a 585 and freshman
Mats Eriksson followed with a 584. Sophomores
Anna Hjelmevoll and
Julia Redzia were close behind with a 583 and 582, respectively.
In smallbore, Ciotola claimed the top spot with a personal best score of 584. Kyanko's score of 580 was second on the day while Bock, Kulbacki and Pentz tied for third place with scores of 577.
Eriksson led the Blue and Gold with a 575 and Anderson was second with a 572. Liuzza shot a 571, Hjelmevoll a 569 and Redzia a 565.
Despite the loss, Coach Jordan was pleased with some of the improvements made over the course of the three-match road trip.
"
Mats Eriksson was the top shooter in almost every match and he really made some big gains over the break," said Jordan. "
Mike Liuzza is shooting some better air gun and getting some confidence and
Ryan Anderson is making a trip to Munich, Germany this week with the U.S. Shooting Team for an air gun match. It should be a great experience for him to prime him for NCAAs."
Alaska returns to Fairbanks and will train for a pair of home matches slated for February 16 and 18 against Nebraska and Jacksonville State. The match on Feb. 18 will serve as the teams' NCAA Qualifier.
"We talked about things and think that we have a good plan for the next six weeks to get things primed up for NCAAs," Jordan said.
