OXFORD, Miss. – The Kentucky rifle team defeated the defending NCAA smallbore champion Jacksonville State and Great American Rifle Conference foe Ole Miss in matches held in Oxford, Miss. Saturday and Sunday.
“I was pleased with the way the team performed this weekend,” head coach Harry Mullins said. “We learned a lot about ourselves. We spotted some strengths and weaknesses which we can work on building upon and improving. The win Saturday over Ole Miss improves us to 2-0 in the conference, which is important.”
The Wildcats defeated Jacksonville State 4634-4632, while the Rebels posted a total score of 4579, in matches held on Saturday.
“We came away with close wins over JSU this weekend,” Mullins said. “If you look at the team scores you can see how close it was. I was happy that we picked up three points from the last match. However I feel that we have a lot more left in us and need to shoot better.”
UK was led by several individuals Saturday, including freshmen Jen Pason and Thomas Csenge. Csenge finished the day in third place with a total score of 1162 and Pason was one place behind with a total of 1160.
Kentucky’s Andrew Roland and Ray Geyer placed fifth and sixth respectively in Saturday’s match, with score of 1156 and 1154.
Sunday was more of the same, as Kentucky posted a total score of 4658 to JSU’s 4646.
Individually UK’s Andrew Roland finished second with a 1166 total while Csenge (1164), Pason (1163), Amy Sowash (1163), and Geyer (1159) all delivered top-ten performances. Pason shot the highest smallbore score of the match, a 585 highlighted by a 100 in prone.
“I think that at the end of the season both of these teams will be making a strong challenge to do well at the NCAA Championships,” Mullins said. ” JSU has been shooting better numbers than we have the past three or four matches and us beating them Saturday really fired them up, so to follow it up with a win Sunday is important. Our shooters were very hungry, which made for an exciting match but hurt our ability to shoot good numbers to compare against other schools throughout the country.”
JSU’s Joseph Hall and Michael Dickinson placed first and second Saturday with scores of 1166 and 1164. Dickinson again found himself atop the standings Sunday with a 1172 total.
