NCAA Championships Preview
Mountaineer Magic Looking For Sweet 16
In the lore of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the West Virginia Univer- sity Rifl e Team is prestigious in both the rank and fi le of all-time greatest teams. This month, they’ll go look-
ing for their 16th NCAA title and have proven, with an undefeated regular season, that they’ll once again be the team to beat. The quest for Sweet 16 starts March 14 at the Pat Spurgin Rifl e Range on the campus of Murray State in Kentucky.
Standing in their way will be
the University of Alaska-Fair- banks and University of Kentucky Wildcats rifl e teams that have the precision necessary to foil another West Virginia run. No NCAA team has had a
more successful history than the wrestling program of Oklahoma State with its impressive 34 team titles. Seven other programs have amassed 20-something NCAA titles while eight others have 15 or more titles, and this is exactly where the Mountaineer program lies with their 15 National Titles. Of course, wrestling has been an NCAA Championship event since 1928, or 52 more years than Rifl e has been an NCAA Cham- pionships event. Why shouldn’t we expect
rifl e dominance from a program whose mascot carries a musket? The mere mention of a Moun- taineer evokes images of a per- son adept at rifl ery and marks- manship. This year’s team is no different. The Mountaineers were strong
to begin the season despite the loss of two-event NCAA Cham- pion Petra Zublasing but have excelled following the addition of Olympian Ziva Dvorsak, a mem- ber of the Slovenian National Team. She joins German sharp shooter Maren Prediger to form a lethal combination on the range, particularly in air. Combine their experience and expertise with that of top-quality shooters like Garrett Spurgeon (Canton, Mo., pictured right), Jean Pierre Lucas (Dunlevy, Pa.) and Taylor Ciotola (Pasadena, Md.) and you have a recipe for continued success. Their depth and experience
was on display recently with late- season victories against No. 3 Alaska-Fairbanks (4709-4680) and No. 2 Kentucky (4702- 4688) on Feb. 6 and Feb. 8, respectively, at the WVU Rifl e Range. The win over the Wildcats gave the Mountaineers their sev- enth regular-season Great Amer- ican Rifl e Conference (GARC) title.
The team average on the sea-
son is 4,703, having eclipsed the 4,700 mark three times. Prediger paces the Mountaineers in air rifl e, averaging 595, while Dvorsak leads smallbore, averag- ing 587 through three matches. The Mountaineers shot a NCAA- best 4710 at the Withrow Invita- tional on Jan. 24. The rifl e team has been
at WVU since 1951 and is the only team at the univer- sity to win an NCAA Champi- onship of any kind. Only two other programs, Women’s Tennis
26 USA Shooting News | March 2014
and Wrestling have even crowned an individual National Champion. Of their 26 appearances at the NCAA, they have won 15 times. They
also
won NRA Intercol- legiate Titles i n
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