Four times over the first weekend of October, a collegiate air rifle shooter fired 60 shots and gave back nothing.
Océanne Muller did it Saturday at West Point, New York, and her West Virginia teammate Jennifer Kocher followed on the same range Sunday. Meanwhile in Columbus, Ohio, Navy’s Isabella Baldwin and Tyler Wee both went perfect in the same match, something Navy believes has happened only once before in NCAA history. Both times, it was Baldwin and Wee.
Griffin Lake supplied the weekend’s other headline number. The WVU senior fired a 598 in smallbore Sunday, matching the second-highest score in NCAA history and setting the best mark ever by a Mountaineer, according to the school.
By Monday, the season’s top four aggregates on the national leaderboard were identical 1195s, all fired between Saturday and Sunday by Lake, Muller, Baldwin and Wee.
Muller has now gone clean in two of her three matches this season. The French sophomore opened the year Sept. 26 in Morgantown, West Virginia, with a 600-57X against Mount Aloysius, then did it again Saturday as West Virginia beat Army 4750-4665 at the Tronsrue Marksmanship Center for its first Great America Rifle Conference win of the season. A 595 in smallbore gave her a 1195 aggregate and the top individual score of the match.
No Mountaineer had ever posted perfect air rifle scores in consecutive matches before Muller, and only one had two career 600s: Niccolò Campriani, who went on to win three Olympic gold medals for Italy. She missed a third straight by a single point Sunday with a 599, leaving her at 1799 of a possible 1800 in air rifle through three matches.
Kocher picked up where Muller left off. The junior shot her first career 600 score Sunday as the Mountaineers beat Norwich 4756-4375 and John Jay 4756-4329 to move to 4-0, giving WVU a perfect air rifle score in three consecutive matches. She added a 592 in smallbore for a 1192 aggregate, matching Muller's total.
Seven months ago, all three Mountaineers came up a point short on the sport’s biggest stage. At the NCAA Rifle Championship in March, Lake, Muller and Kocher each fired a 599 in air rifle as West Virginia tied the NCAA team record of 2395 on its way to a 21st national title. Two of them have since found the missing point.
Lake found something rarer. NCAA smallbore calls for 60 shots with a .22 rimfire rifle at 50 feet, 20 apiece from kneeling, prone and standing, and his 598 meant just two points dropped across all three positions. He paired it with a 597 in air rifle for a 1195 aggregate and first place, one point better than the 1194-101X that won him the individual aggregate title and Most Outstanding Performer honors in March. Factor in the 598 he shot in air rifle against Army on Saturday, and Lake’s weekend had a tidy symmetry: 598 in each discipline, a day apart.
Navy’s two perfect scores came with a tiebreaker attached. Baldwin and Wee shot identical cards at Ohio State’s Converse Hall: 595 in smallbore, 600 in air rifle and a 1195 aggregate, with 95 center shots apiece. Wee took first overall on the strength of 38 smallbore centers to Baldwin’s 37, while Baldwin won the air rifle discipline with a 600-58X to Wee’s 600-57X. Both aggregates set a Navy program record, and both 595s tied the program’s smallbore mark.
Navy Head Coach Mike Anti, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist in 50-meter three-position rifle, credited the team’s approach. “They come to practice ready to work every day and have the confidence to perform under pressure,” he said.
Their scores anchored a 4743 for No. 8 Navy (6-0, 1-0 GARC) on Sunday, enough to beat No. 3 TCU (4724) and host No. 14 Ohio State (4684) and two points shy of the program record set last season. TCU actually edged the Midshipmen in air rifle, 2385-2384, so the margin came in smallbore, where Navy’s 2359 ranks second in program history. Navy opened the weekend Saturday with a 4732-4674 win at No. 15 Akron, led by Hannah Talbott, whose personal-best 1192 included a 599 in air rifle.
West Virginia’s next match is Oct. 17 at Georgia Southern in Statesboro, Georgia. Navy returns home Oct. 25 to host Memphis and Mount Aloysius at the Bancroft Hall Rifle Range in Annapolis, Maryland.
See full match results at ncaarifle.org.
