National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

March 3, 1997

National Collegiate

Winner's circle may have new face

Event: 1997 National Collegiate Men's and Women's Rifle Championships.

Overview: Defending champion West Virginia has dominated, winning nine of the last 10 titles, but three other teams -- Alaska Fairbanks, Air Force and Kentucky -- appear capable of outshooting the Mountaineers this year. "I can't remember a group of qualifying (team) scores being this high in recent years," West Virginia coach Marsha Beasley said. "The top score has been this high before, but there haven't been this many this high" ... For evidence of a tight contest, one need look no further than the West Virginia-Kentucky match back in December, when the Wildcats handed the Mountaineers their first dual-meet home loss since 1979 (6,178-6,170). Unofficially, the streak was the longest home winning streak in college sports history. "That was a real stepping- stone for us," Wildcat coach Harry Mullins said. "It gave us a lot of confidence, maybe too much, considering that we didn't shoot well in sectionals. The past four or five years, we knew we had to get lucky to beat them. This year we knew we had a chance if we shot well." Kentucky is led by Mary Elsass, who finished fifth in individual smallbore last year ... Beasley said her team has been more inconsistent than in past years, but is still capable of posting high scores. "We are now shooting about what I had projected," she said. "We weren't doing as well early in the season." Under NCAA qualifying pressure, the Mountaineers shot their best air rifle score of the season (1,557) and followed that a week later with a season-high 6,215 in smallbore. In air rifle, Kim Howe (394) and Marcos Scrivner (386) have posted two of the highest qualifying scores, leading the Mountaineers to the top ranking in that event. Scrivner was fourth individually in last year's air competition ... With the only two shooters who have posted 1,180s this season in smallbore (Oleg Seleznev and Kelly Mansfield), it is easy to see why Alaska Fairbanks is so strong. Seleznev won the individual smallbore event in 1995. The Nanooks are ranked second in air rifle ... Air Force also ranks high in the two disciplines and is ranked third overall ... A relative newcomer to the national scene is Norwich, which has posted the third-best air rifle qualifying score.

Field: A total of 48 competitors will be selected.

Dates and site: The individual competition will be March 8 and team competition will be March 9 at Air Force.

Information/results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1905); request numbers are 5134 for individual results and 5135 for team results. Championships results also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Results will be published in the March 17 issue of The NCAA News.

Championships note: Alaska Fairbanks (1994) is the only team other than West Virginia that has won a team championship since 1985.