Wildcats in Second After Smallbore at NCAA Championships
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky rifle team put together a strong smallbore performance Friday, sitting in second place as a team with three athletes making the individual smallbore final, completing the first day of competition at the 2025 NCAA Rifle National Championships in Historic Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Kentucky.
Kentucky scored a 2354 as a team, sitting one point behind Alaska, who posted a 2355 in the discipline. West Virginia sits in third with a 2350, while TCU is fourth at 2335, Ole Miss fifth at 2333 with 124 centers and Georgia Southern sixth at 2333 with 113 centers. Murray State is seventh with a 2322 and Air Force is eighth at 2321.
The 2025 team national championship will be decided Saturday as air rifle competition begins at 9 a.m. ET. Ther second relay is slated to get underway at 11:30 a.m. ET with a 2 p.m. ET individual final and team and individual awards to follow. Live targets and a NCAA scorecard will be available online at UKathletics.com, while a live stream of the event will be available on NCAA.com with former UK all-Americans Billy Azzinaro and Emmie Sellers on the call.
Single-session tickets for Big Blue Nation to watch the action Saturday are on sale through the UK Athletics Account Manager. Single-session tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for youth (ages 3-18) and seniors (age 65+). Children ages 2 and under will be admitted free of charge. Fans should purchase tickets for the event in advance through UK Athletics Account Manager through Ticketmaster. Tickets will also be available for purchase in person at the UK Athletics Ticket Office inside the Joe Craft Center.
Accessible seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. For safety reasons, only the Lexington Avenue entrance will be available for fans to enter Historic Memorial Coliseum. The Avenue of Champions and Rose Street entrances will be closed for this event. Parking options surrounding the venue are available. Complete match information, including parking maps and additional ticket information is available at ukathletics.com/ncaarifle.
Kentucky is one of the most decorated programs in NCAA rifle history, with four national titles – 2011, 2018, 2021 and 2022 – six runner-up finishes and 23 top-five finishes. The 2025 championships will technically mark the second time UK has hosted the national event. The first was in 2020 when UK turned Memorial Coliseum into a first-class range before the NCAA canceled the championships after Thursday’s practice day due to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. That season, Kentucky was ranked No. 1 in the nation and was having an undefeated season.
“After the first day coming out and doing more or less what we’ve been doing all year, I think is a good thing. We really work on trying to be ourselves and doing what we typically do on a day in day out basis, and I thought the team did that in really good fashion today. It was exciting to have three people in the final. I’m disappointed for them that they didn’t finish higher than they did, but super proud of them. You couldn’t ask for any more than that. They battled really hard today, and were super proud to go into tomorrow and see what we can do,” UK head coach Harry Mullins said.
Kentucky had good performances in smallbore throughout the whole lineup Friday. Sophomore Braden Peiser and junior Sofia Ceccarello paced Kentucky with 591s, while freshman Liz Probst was right behind them with a 589. All three advanced to the individual smallbore final, with Probst finishing seventh, Ceccarello fifth and Peiser fourth. Wrapping up the UK lineup was freshman Sam Adkins with a 583, while junior Martin Voss scored a 575. Peiser posted a 198 in kneeling, 196 in prone and 197 in standing, while Ceccarello scored a 196 in kneeling, 200 in prone and 195 in standing. Probst started with a 194 in kneeling, but responded in prone with a 199 and finished strong in standing with a 196. Adkins posted a 195 in kneeling, 197 in prone and 191 in standing, while Voss scored a 191 in kneeling, 197 in prone and 187 in standing.
Alaska took home gold and silver in the smallbore individual final with Cecelia Ossi winning gold and Rachael Charles winning silver. TCU’s Katie Zaun took home bronze.
For more information on the Kentucky rifle team, visit UKathletics.com or follow UKRifle on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
