COLUMBIA, Mo. — Ohio State rolled to its sixth consecutive national title at the 2026 Intercollegiate Pistol Championship, hosted by Marksmanship USA at the Missouri Marksmanship Education Center from March 25-28. Ohio State finished with 6716-151X and beat runner-up Army by 330 points and 83 Xs. Navy took third at 6310-60X followed by MIT and Utah to round out the top five.
Ohio State didn’t just win the team title. The Buckeyes swept all three disciplines and put the top eight shooters on the individual aggregate leaderboard.
Ohio State junior and Paris 2024 Olympian Ada Korkhin led the way for the Buckeyes with an aggregate of 1685-44X, edging sophomore teammate Marcus Klemp at 1679-25X and fellow sophomore Blaine Simpson at 1677-38X. Johnathan Dorsten, Ankita Deokule, Evan Langerak, Riya Salian and Maral Gantsooj filled out the rest of the top eight.
In Air Pistol, Ohio State posted a team score of 2255-53X with Korkhin (571-17X) and Klemp (570-13X) leading the way. Sport Pistol was even more lopsided. The Buckeyes were in the top eight on the individual leaderboard with Deokule’s score of 581-13X leading the way, also securing the team title at 2284-63X. Standard Pistol followed the same script. Senior Abbie Leverett took the individual title at 553-12X as Ohio State won that team competition by a 142-point margin.
Nearly 100 athletes competed across 12 programs including Army, Navy, MIT, Utah, North Dakota State, The Citadel, Merchant Marine Academy, Liberty University, VMI, Purdue and Hillsdale College. The service academies once again validated their reputation for producing disciplined competitors with Army and Navy locking down the silver and bronze.
But the story under the story belonged to some hardware that had been sitting in a closet.
For the first time since 2019, the National Rifle Association of America was back at the Intercollegiate Pistol Nationals. The NRA last had oversight of the championship and All American selections in that year before the 2020 event was cancelled days out due to COVID. The trophies that had defined the championship for years went into storage and stayed there.
In 2026, they came back out.
Four of the six historic NRA collegiate pistol trophies were on display at the Missouri Marksmanship Education Center, where they were presented to winning teams and individuals during the awards banquet. The other two were not available for transport this year but are expected to make the trip in 2027. NRA Director and Collegiate Programs Committee member Ted Carter attended the championship, met with Marksmanship USA leadership and coaches, and helped present awards.
The National Rifle Association also provided financial support for the event after recently completing a memorandum of understanding with Marksmanship USA. Although the NRA was not able to provide the Seivers and Burns trophies for display, Marksmanship USA provided plaques of all six NRA trophies to the winners during the awards ceremony.
Marksmanship USA’s Diane Rice, who has helped steward the championship’s growth, publicly thanked the NRA for its financial support and for releasing the trophies. USA Shooting Pistol National Team Manager Anthony Lutz attended in person and used the event to extend Development Team invitations to standout athletes, while the Civilian Marksmanship Program contributed electronic targets.
The Missouri Marksmanship Education Center itself, still in development thanks to the Potterfield family and the MidwayUSA Foundation, gave the discipline a new home.
For Marksmanship USA Director of Sport Advancement James Hall, the championship was a checkpoint on a five-year project to grow the sport. Participation is up. The footprint is bigger. And after a long stretch of operating in parallel rather than in unison, the major stewards of American shooting sports showed up at the same range on the same weekend pulling in roughly the same direction.
For now though, the scoreboard tells the simplest version of the story. Ohio State remains the team to beat. The NRA is back at the table. And collegiate pistol, a discipline that has spent years asking quietly for attention, finally got a weekend that felt like an answer.
2026 Intercollegiate Pistol Championship Team Aggregate Leaderboard
- Ohio State – 6716-151X
- Army – 6386-68X
- Navy – 6310-60X
- MIT – 6239-64X
- Utah – 6234-56X
- North Dakota State – 6203-59X
- The Citadel – 5999-36X
- Merchant Marine Acad. – 5854-28X
- Liberty – 5853-36X
- VMI – 5830-33X
See the full results of the 2026 Intercollegiate Pistol Nationals.
