The NC State rifle team will return to action this weekend Dec. 6-8 with its appearance at the Winter Airgun Championships in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
This match will serve as the first half of the 2020 Olympic Trials to select Team USA’s members for the 2020 Olympics. The second half will take place in February and the top-two men and women at that competition will earn a spot in the 2020 Olympics in Japan.
This would be the second consecutive Olympics that the Wolfpack sent a member of their rifle team to compete. In 2016, Lucas Kozeniesky competed in the Men’s 10M Air Rifle and finished 21 out of 50 competitors.
The competitors will also be competing for a spot on the podium and the top three competitors in the junior and open categories will take home an award.
Four members of the team will travel to Colorado this weekend. The members include sophomore Emily Fisher, and freshmen Addy Burrow, John Peterson and Makenzie Sheffield. This will be Fisher’s second time at the event after also competing in 2018.
While the team couldn’t pull out a win against West Virginia, Fisher and Makenzie will hope to pick up right where they left off in their previous match. Fisher shot a career-high 587 beating her previous career high of 581 in smallbore and an aggregate career high of 1,175. Makenzie shot a career-high 593 in air rifle with an aggregate score of 1,172, which was good enough for second on the team behind Fisher.
This event will mark the last time NC State’s rifle team will compete in 2019. Its next team competitions will take place on Jan. 18-19 when it travels to West Point, New York to take on Kentucky and Army.
