For the last four months, the Akron Zips Rifle Club has been competing in home matches and sending in scores to be ranked against other colleges in the Western Intercollegiate Rifle Conference (WIRC). In February, all conference participants headed to Purdue University for the WIRC Championship. Scores were tallied from not only from the championship match, but also from the previous four postal matches and compiled at one awards banquet. Last year, the Zips were successful in taking home a very large trophy. They repeated the feat this year.
Saturday started early with brushing snow off the vehicles and cold bores on the range. However, once the Zips started warming up, there was no stopping them. Luke Massie led the team in smallbore with an impressive score of 558. Hot on his heals was freshman Liz Bark scoring a new personal best of 556. Both scores landed Massie and Bark as second and third place individuals for the match. Chris Thomas fired a near-season high of 548, awarding him the fifth most improved smallbore individual in the conference. Additionally, Gabby Pitre fired a new personal high score of 540—after only one week of practice with her new gun!
Once all shots were fired, the combined score of 2202 was enough for the Zips to win the smallbore WIRC Championship. When this score was combined with all previous team postal scores, the Zips secured the win for overall regular season team champion.
The Zips were determined not to be distracted when it came to air rifle. Leading was sophomore Brandon Meier, who shattered his previous best with a 576—winning individual match champion. Another record-breaking personal best performance came from Nick Haas who crushed his old personal best by firing a 553, landing him as the third most improved air rifle conference competitor. Duplicating their smallbore performance, the Zips dominated the air rifle event by winning gold in both the championship match and overall regular season with postal scores.
The Zips will next compete at the 2017 NRA Intercollegiate Rifle Club Championship at Fort Benning, GA, on March 17-19.
