Men's and Women's Rifle | 2/25/2020 12:49:00 PM

FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Kellen McAferty, a sophomore from Littlerock, Wash., will represent the Alaska Nanooks at the 2020 NCAA Rifle Championships in Lexington, Kentucky on March 13-14 of this year.

The news broke the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 25 during the NCAA Rifle Selection Show that began at 11 a.m. AKT, announcing McAferty and a field of four others had qualified for the individual championships. Last weekend in El Paso, Texas, McAferty shot a 587 in the smallbore shoot, claiming the best score amongst the individual qualifiers. Also joining McAferty in Lexington will be Abby Buesseler from Ole Miss, Taylor Gibson from Memphis, Clayton Hanson from Army West Point and Kaitlyn Kutz, also from Army West Point.

McAferty was excited to represent the Nanooks after the team did not qualify for the Championships for the first time in 32 years, "You know, it'll be cool to carry on the tradition of a Nanook shooting at the NCAA Championships. It was tough to see the streak be snapped, but having the blue and gold still shooting at the event says a lot and I'll be looking to bring home some hardware. For now though, I just need to keep at it and get in a good groove going into championships."

The University of Kentucky will be the host of the 2020 Championships, claiming the top seed, edging out TCU, who claimed the second seed. In order of rank, these teams rounded out the top-eight who qualified for the finals; West Virginia, Nebraska, Akron, Murray State, Navy and Air Force.

Head coach Layne Lewis spoke highly of the way McAferty worked through this whole season, "Kellen has been our strongest athlete all year, posting some of the highest smallbore scores in the NCAA this season. I am very proud of Kellen for qualifying for Championships and representing the Nanooks. It will be a great match to watch and Kellen is training hard for it."

For more information on the Alaska Nanooks rifle team, follow @NanooksRifle on Twitter, or like the Alaska Nanooks Rifle team page on Facebook.