West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Telling West Virginia's Story
West Virginia University will host the NCAA rifle national championships in two years.
The NCAA announced Tuesday that the university will host the event in Morgantown on March 8 and 9 in 2019. It marks the first time that WVU will be the host site for an NCAA championship final.
West Virginia has won five consecutive NCAA rifle titles and 19 overall.
The West Virginia University rifle team held an open house on Tuesday to celebrate a successful year by teaching their fans to shoot.
WVU Rifle won its fifth consecutive NCAA championship this season, which is its 19th win overall. Two freshmen on the team, Morgan Phillips and Milica Babic, won both individual NCAA titles.
The team also won its eighth consecutive Great American Rifle Conference Championships. They finished the season undefeated.
Fans young and old flocked to the WVU rifle range in Morgantown to take turns receiving one-on-one instruction from the student athletes on shooting.
“You’ve got to shoot one more. You can’t ever leave the range on a nine,” Will Anti, a sophomore on the team, told Claire Price, a 15-year-old fan from Morgantown who said the student athletes are her “idols.”
Coach Jon Hammond said that while the rifle team enjoys strong support from the state, the rules of the sport itself are not well known even to fans. Hammond hoped that the celebratory open house could help change that.
“Even in West Virginia where we have such a community and culture of the outdoors and different types of rifle shooting and hunting, I think people are not sure exactly what we do,” Hammond said. “So it’s just a great opportunity for the fans and spectators to come in and meet the team but also try the sport and shoot a little bit as well.”
The West Virginia rifle team is showing off its NCAA championship trophy at an open house.
WVU says in a news release that fans can greet coach Jon Hammond and his team on Tuesday evening at the WVU Rifle Range in Morgantown.
The Mountaineers won their fifth straight NCAA rifle championship earlier this month in Columbus, Ohio. It was the 19th national rifle title overall and the sixth under Hammond.
Mountaineer freshmen Morgan Phillips won the smallbore individual title and classmate Milica Babic took the air rifle crown.
West Virginia University honored three students Monday, Sept. 26, who brought home medals from the Rio Olympic Games.
Olympians Ginny Thrasher, Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence welcomed guests at the Morgantown Event Center as they reminisced about their time in Rio, Brazil, this summer.
Thrasher, a sophomore, won gold for U.S. rifle while seniors Buchanan and Lawrence won bronze with the Canadian soccer team.
Thrasher expressed her gratitude to represent not only West Virginia, but also the sport of rifle.
“My sport is one that is a little bit of an unknown to the average American, so for me to be representing positively and to display myself and my sport is honestly an honor,” she said.
Lawrence explained how the overwhelming support from her teammates helped her and Buchanan feel they represented the university well.
“We really feel their support and we know how happy they are for us because they know that we aren’t only representing Canada, but we are also representing West Virginia University,” Lawrence said.
The athletes signed autographs, took photos and mingled with the audience after speaking. They are the first student athletes since 1992 to win an Olympic medal while competing for WVU.
The rifle team begins its season on Sunday, Oct. 2, against Ohio State. The women’s soccer team is 8-1-1, and play next on Friday, Sept. 30, against Baylor.
WVU’s Ginny Thrasher has won the first gold medal of the Rio Olympics in the women’s 10-meter air rifle.
Thrasher shot 10.5 on her first shot of the final elimination round and smiled after 10.4 on her second shot put her comfortably ahead of China’s Li Du.
Thrasher had a cumulative score of 208.0 to beat Du, a two-time gold medalist, by a point. China’s Siling Yu earned the bronze.
The 19-year Thrasher became the first freshman to win both individual NCAA rifle titles and helped West Virginia University win the team title. She followed that by winning the U.S. Olympic Trials less than a month later, earning a trip to Rio.
Thrasher is an engineering major from Springfield, Virginia and “owns more than 20 National Rifle Association and USA Shooting records,” according to the WVU Athletics website.
National Champs again! The No. 1-ranked West Virginia University rifle team won its 16th NCAA Championship in Murray, Ky., Friday.
The Mountaineers won the championship last year too, and it’s the third win under coach Jon Hammond. WVU’s first title under Hammond came in 2009. The rifle team is the only WVU program to win an NCAA Championship.
Hammond says it was a relaxed win, and that his team was confident, focused, and capable. He also expects good things next year as all five shooters that shot at this year’s championship will return.
WVU, the five-time reigning Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) champions, finished the 2013-14 campaign with a 10-0 overall record and a 7-0 conference mark.
Seven Mountaineers earned a combined 10 National Rifle Association All-America awards, while four Mountaineers were named to the College Rifle Coaches’ Association (CRCA) All-America Teams.
