Complete Match Scores
FAIRBANKS, Alaska - The No. 4 Alaska Nanooks shot their season-high aggregate score but it could not overcome the score put up by the visiting No. 2 West Virginia Mountaineers, who were one point shy of the NCAA record as they outshot their hosts 4719-4670 on Saturday at the E. F. Horton Rifle Range.
Alaska was outscored 2376-2350 in air rifle and 2343-2320 in smallbore as they fell to 2-1-1 on the season.
"It was a loss but it was our season-high, so that's a good step there," head coach
Dan Jordan said. "I left five points on the board the way I picked teams. Potentially a 4,675 is really doing pretty well. All of our shots were pretty solid and all we need is two or three points from each person and we're sitting competitively."
WVU shot the six highest air gun scores on the day, led by a 597 from Petra Zublasing, with that group shooting nothing worse than a 590.
The Nanooks starters for air gun included
Tim Sherry,
Ryan Anderson, Michael Liuzza,
Mats Eriksson and
Anna Hjelmevoll. Sherry and Anderson tied for the team lead (6th, 9th overall) with 589, while Liuzza was third-best (10th) with 588 and Eriksson (12th) and Hjelmevoll (18th) rounded out the scoring with a 584 and 571 respectively.
In smallbore, Zublasing was again tops, tying fellow Mountaineer Meelis Kiisk with a 588.
Anderson has the third-best score with a 586, while Liuzza was 6th with a 581 and
Cole Bures was 10th with a 578.
Soren Butler (575, 11th) and
Tim Sherry (570, 16th) were also on the scoring squad.
"The ultimate goal is Championships so all we can do is work on improving tomorrow," Jordan said. "West Virginia was one point off the national record, which it shot last weekend, so we're competing against tough teams. Ultimately, we're looking at Championships and it's a long road until then."
The teams will shoot a second match on Sunday beginning at 8 a.m. Four relays will run throughout the day with two in the E.F. Horton Rifle Range in the morning and the air gun portion of the match being shot upstairs in the Patty Center Gymnasium beginning at 1:30 p.m.
A spectator friendly final will be shot at 6 p.m. in the Patty Center Gymnasium.
"If we were to compete against weaker teams all year, we'd never push ourselves," Jordan said. "You can only improve by competing against better opponents and seeing what it's going to take at Championships that brings up our level of expectation."
