Rifle Begins 2025-26 Schedule at Ohio State
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The No. 2 ranked University of Kentucky rifle team will begin its 2025-26 season where it hopes to end it, as UK will travel Saturday to face Ohio State, who is hosting the 2026 NCAA Rifle National Championships later this season.
Kentucky and Ohio State will be joined at the match along with Memphis. Smallbore is set to begin at 9 a.m. ET, while air rifle will follow at approx. 11:30 a.m. ET. Only one relay will be competed Saturday.
Live targets along with a live stream will be available online and links can be found at UKathletics.com. NCAArifle.org will have a live scorecard for the match and final results.
“Really excited to get another season underway with a really great group to be around,” UK head coach Harry Mullins said. “I have been happy with our preseason training and think we are headed in the right direction. This is a great chance for us to get on the road early in the season and create some natural team chemistry, which is good. It will also be good for us to take a trip up to where NCAAs will be later this season and make sure we know what the expectation level of this program is. Hopefully, we have a good day in the range.”
The 2025-26 season will be the 38th season with Mullins at the helm. Mullins is joined only by legendary men’s basketball coach Adolph Rupp as the only head coaches in UK Athletics history with four national titles with the Wildcats.
Kentucky, which begins the season ranked No. 2 in the preseason rankings, is coming off a runner-up finish at the 2025 NCAA Rifle National Championships, which the program hosted inside Historic Memorial Coliseum. The Wildcats finished just one point shy of tying for the team title, earning its seventh runner-up finish in program history. Junior Braden Peiser posted a 599 in air rifle competition and finished second in the air rifle final after a one-shot shoot off.
The Wildcats return two unanimous Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association All-America honorees to its 2025-26 roster in Peiser and senior Sofia Ceccarello. Peiser and Ceccarello were both first-team All-America in aggregate, smallbore and air rifle. Both had incredible seasons for Kentucky with Peiser leading Kentucky in smallbore average and aggregate average, while Ceccarello led in air rifle average and was second on the team in aggregate average.
Also returning for Kentucky will be CRCA All-America honorees Sam Adkins and Martin Voss, who both competed in the NCAA Championships last season. Adkins was honorable mention in smallbore and air rifle, while Voss was honorable mention in smallbore. UK’s other 2025 NCAA Championships squadded competitor was Liz Probst, who had an incredible rookie season for UK. Probst earned a silver medal in smallbore at the GARC Championships last season and made the NCAA Championships smallbore individual final, finishing seventh. Both Adkins and Probst are poised for strong sophomore seasons, while Voss will be entering his senior year.
Also returning will be senior AJ Hotko, junior Emily Marne and sophomores Brandon Evans and Hannah Todd. The Wildcats will also add several impressive junior competitors that should add great depth to Team 38.
This will be the second match of the season for Memphis, who competed at home last weekend against defending 2025 national champion West Virginia. The Tigers posted a 4718 team score, falling to the Mountaineers, who scored an impressive 4745.
OSU has competed twice this season, starting with a tri-match at home in mid-September against Georgia Southern and Aloysius, where the Buckeyes scored a 4679. The following weekend, Ohio State competed at Nebraska, scoring a 4688.
Kentucky is one of the most decorated programs in NCAA rifle history, with four national titles – 2011, 2018, 2021 and 2022 – seven runner-up finishes and 24 top-five finishes.
