Rifle Starts 2026-27 Season at Georgia Southern on Saturday
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky rifle team will begin its 39th season under head coach Harry Mullins on Saturday when it travels to Statesboro, Georgia for a dual-match with 2026 NCAA qualifier Georgia Southern.
There will be one relay on Saturday, starting at approximately 8 a.m. ET. An NCAA scorecard and live targets will be available online at UKathletics.com.
“We are excited to get the season underway and to start on the road. It is good to get the team away from our home range early and see how they handle travel and a different environment,” UK head coach Harry Mullins said. “As we say every year, we have a process of growth and development in our program that creates a healthy competition throughout the season and gets our athletes hopefully competing at their best during the championship seasons. I really have enjoyed this team so far and look forward to Saturday.”
Saturday’s match with Georgia Southern starts the 2026-27 season for the Wildcats. This is the second year in a row that Kentucky has started its season in the same city that the NCAA Championships will be held later in the year. Saturday’s match will be in the Shooting Sports Education Center with the NCAA Championships held in the Jack and Ruth Ann Hill Convocation Center.
UK will return home after the match for back-to-back home matches vs. Murray State on Oct. 10 and vs. Akron on Oct. 17.
Kentucky is coming off a fourth-place finish at the 2026 NCAA Rifle National Championships. UK took home third place in air rifle as a team, while Braden Peiser won the individual smallbore national championship.
Peiser will return for UK after being first-team All-America in aggregate, smallbore and air rifle last season. The senior led Kentucky in smallbore, air rifle and aggregate average. Peiser set a NCAA smallbore record score last season and tied a NCAA record aggregate score.
Kentucky will also return Sam Adkins and Liz Peiser, who both had great sophomore seasons in 2025-26 and competed at NCAA Championships for Kentucky. Others returning are Emily Marne and Hannah Todd, who showed great improvement last season, and Elisa Boozer and Jacob St. Hilaire, who shined a rookies in 2025-26.
Mullins and Co. will welcome four new faces to the program this season in Noah Abzug (Monkton, Maryland), Maggie Palfrey (Indiana, Pennsylvania), Briley Sralla (Johnson City, Texas) and Iva Rakonjac (Pancevo, Serbia).
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 25 top-five finishes.
Georgia Southern was one of eight teams to make the NCAA Championships last season at Ohio State. This will also be the Eagles first match of the season.
