Huskers Hunt For First National Title

The Nebraska rifle team will travel to the E.F. Horton Rifle Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, this weekend in the hopes of winning its first NCAA Championship title.  The individual and team smallbore competition will be held Friday, March 9, at 10 a.m.  Action will then continue Saturday, March 10, at 10 a.m. with the air rifle competition.

 

The overall team champion with be determined by combining the smallbore and air rifle team totals into one aggregate score. 

 

Eight of the nation’s top collegiate rifle programs qualified for this weekend’s match, including the defending national champion Alaska-Fairbanks team, along with Kentucky, JacksonvilleState, MurrayState, TCU, Navy and Army.

 

Nebraska enters this weekend after placing third at the Great American Rifle Conference championships on Feb. 25, with a team score of 4,600. 

 

“At the GARC championships, I tried some experienced shooters on the team and then gave experience to some others to see how they would handle the larger match,” Head Coach Launi Meili said.  “It helped me determine who the team would be to represent us at the NCAA nationals.”

 

Seniors Stacy Underwood and Kristina Fehlings and junior Kirsten Weiss will compete in both air rifle and smallbore for the Huskers, while freshman Amanda Jeffries will compete in smallbore and junior Kim Chrostowski will compete in air rifle.

 

“We do have the potential to be competitive,” Meili said, “It’s just getting the right combination of people to accomplish that.”

 

NCAA History

This weekend the Huskers will participate in their sixth NCAA Championships since Nebraska became apart of NCAA in 1999.  This is the fourth consecutive NCAA trip for Nebraska, which has qualified every year since 2004.  Coincidentally, it is also the fourth consecutive trip for Head Coach Launi Meili, who has helped the Huskers advance in four of her five years as Nebraska’s head coach.

 

Nebraska’s highest finish as a team over the past nine years has been second, which the Huskers earned at the 2006 NCAA Championships.  NU has also posted a pair of third place finishes in 2000 and 2005, and two sixth-place finishes in 2001 and 2004.

 

This year, the Huskers are in the presence of very good company, as three of the eight competing teams have previously won an NCAA team title.  MurrayState won in 1985 and 1987, Alaska-Fairbanks won in 1994 and again every year between 1999 and 2004 and in 2006, while Army notched its first team title in 2005.

 

Although NU has had plenty of team experience at the NCAA Championships, only two Huskers have ever won an individual event title.  At Nebraska’s first national championships appearance in 2000, Nicole Allaire took top honors in the smallbore with a score of 1,183.  Last season, Kristina Fehlings notched the second individual title in NU rifle history by posting a career-high 592 for first place in air rifle.  She also finished fifth to post Nebraska’s highest smallbore finish.

 

 

Huskers Take Third at GARC Championships

The Nebraska rifle team placed third in the Great American Rifle Conference Championships on Sunday, Feb. 26, at Oxford, Miss.  NU shot a combined team score of 4,600, just 30 points shy of the first-place Kentucky team.

 

Nebraska slipped to third after firing a 2,280 in the smallbore competition on Saturday, Feb. 25.  Individually, junior Kirsten Weiss shot a score of 576 in regulation for a sixth-place finish.  Senior Kristina Fehlings scored a 577 for a seventh-place finish, while freshman Amanda Jeffries shot a 573 for eighth.

 

The Huskers scored a total score of 2,320 in the air rifle competition on Sunday to finish third in the championships. Weiss also led the Huskers in air rifle, earning a third-place finish with a score of 588 in regulation.  Fehlings finished eighth with a score of 586.

 

At the GARC awards banquet on Friday, Feb. 25, senior Stacy Underwood was honored as the 2006 GARC Senior of the Year. 

 

All-conference teams were also announced at the banquet, with Underwood earning first-team honors in air rifle and combined and second-team honors in smallbore.  Weiss earned first-team smallbore honors, second-team combined honors and honorable mention in air rifle.  Junior Kim Chrostowski earned second-team air rifle and combined honors, as well as honorable mention in smallbore.  Fehlings rounded Nebraska’s all-conference list, earning second-team honors in smallbore.