The NCAA Rifle Championship is an annual co-educational rifle national collegiate championship sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The tournament includes an individual and team championships consisting of the two-day aggregate scoring of the smallbore competition and air rifle competition. The national championship rounds are contested annually in mid-March. West Virginia (19) and Alaska (11) have combined to win 30 of the 43 team championships. Unlike many NCAA sports, only one National Collegiate championship is held each season with teams from Division I, Division II, and Division III competing together.
Under NCAA rules, sports teams that include both men and women are designated as men's teams for purposes of sports sponsorship and scholarship limitations.[1][a] Nonetheless, rifle has been a coed sport since 1980, a year before the NCAA began holding championships in women's sports. Schools sponsoring rifle may field anywhere from one to three teams. If a school chooses to sponsor more than one team, it may have any combination of men's, women's, and coed teams. Two schools field men's and women's teams, and three field women's and coed teams.
The current team national champions are the TCU Horned Frogs, who won their fourth national championship at the WVU Coliseum, located at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, on March 8 and 9, 2024. West Virginia's Mary Tucker won the 2024 individual title in small-bore. WVU junior Gavin Barnick won the air rifle national championship, besting Kentucky's Braden Peiser. In the air rifle qualification round, Alaska's Elijah Spencer fired a score of 600 (a perfect score), with 57x - one X behind the NCAA record set by Nanook Rylan Kissell at the 2023 NCAA Rifle Championship.
From 1980 to 2004, the championship consisted of 120 shots by each competitor in smallbore, and 40 shots per competitor in air rifle. Since 2005, the championship has consisted of 60 shots for both smallbore and air rifle, equaling a total of 120 shots per team member.[5]
↑ While all members of NCAA Divisions I and II are limited to the equivalent of 3.6 full scholarships in rifle per school in any academic year,[2][3] Division II members are also limited to 60 scholarship equivalents in men's sports apart from football and basketball.[4]
External links
↑ "Bylaw 20.9.6: Sports Sponsorship"(PDF). 2020–21 NCAA Division I Manual. NCAA. August 7, 2020. pp.406–07. Retrieved March 14, 2021. This bylaw also applies in Divisions II and III, but is numbered differently in those divisions' manuals.
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas. It consists of 16 full-member universities in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their student-athletes.
NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environment offered in Division III.
The West Virginia Mountaineers are the athletic teams that represent West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. The school is a member of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I. The Mountaineers have been a member of the Big 12 Conference since 2012. The men's soccer team now competes as an affiliate member in the Sun Belt Conference.
College lacrosse is played by student-athletes at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In both countries, men's field lacrosse and women's lacrosse are played at both the varsity and club levels. College lacrosse in Canada is sponsored by the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) and Maritime University Field Lacrosse League (MUFLL), while in the United States, varsity men's and women's lacrosse is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). There are also university lacrosse programs in the United Kingdom sponsored by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and programs in Japan.
The Alaska Nanooks are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The Nanooks name is derived from the Inupiaq "nanuq", meaning polar bear. The school colors are blue and gold. The Nanooks compete at the NCAA Division II level for all sports except men's ice hockey. The majority of Nanooks sports are members of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), the hockey team is an Independent and plays at the 4,595-seat Carlson Center located west of downtown Fairbanks, while the women's swim team is a member of the Pacific Collegiate Swimming and Diving Conference (PCSC), the men's and women's skiing teams are members of the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA), and the rifle team competes as a member of the Patriot Rifle Conference.
The VMI Keydets are the athletic teams that represent the Virginia Military Institute. All sports participate in the NCAA Division I, and all but three compete in the Southern Conference (the exceptions being men's and women's swimming and diving in the America East Conference, and women's water polo in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. VMI fields teams in sixteen different sports, ten for men and six for women.
The West Virginia Mountaineers men's soccer team is the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I soccer team of West Virginia University (WVU). Beginning with the 2012 season, the team was an affiliate member of the Mid-American Conference because WVU is the only school in its primary conference, the Big 12 Conference, that has a varsity men's soccer team. For the 2022 season, West Virginia joined in-state rival Marshall in the Sun Belt Conference, and the Mountain State Derby will become an annual conference game. WVU had been scheduled to leave the MAC for Conference USA but this plan was changed when Marshall changed conferences from CUSA to the SBC.
The 1989 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the ninth annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was held at the Pat Spurgin Rifle Range at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.
The 1991 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 11th annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was held at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.
The 1992 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 13th annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was hosted by Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.
The 1993 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 13th annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was hosted by the Virginia Military Institute at Kilbourne Hall in Lexington, Virginia.
The 1994 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 15th annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was hosted by the Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.
The 1995 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 16th annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was hosted by the United States Naval Academy at the Bancroft Hall Rifle Range in Annapolis, Maryland.
The 1997 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 18th annual competition to determine the team and individual national champions of NCAA co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was hosted by Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.
The 2000 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 21st annual NCAA-sanctioned competition to determine the team and individual national champions of co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States. The championship was hosted by the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia.
NCAA Emerging Sports for Women are intercollegiate women's sports that are recognized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, but do not have sanctioned NCAA Championships.
The 2015 NCAA Rifle Championships were contested at the 36th annual NCAA-sanctioned competition to determine the team and individual national champions of co-ed collegiate rifle shooting in the United States.
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