RifleBusDriver

NOW we're talking sports. Any possibility Jenna will graduate early? Do any of the freshman have monster hands? Do we know the start time for the MAC open. Any Zip fans interested in renting a bus and making the trip? Will the new Zip store at the Info be carrying ammo?Jenna should be here for the duration. This is especially true since she is one of the newest members of the National Development Team (NDT) based out of US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. The NDT is a select group of athletes being groomed as potential Olympians. This will require her to do some extensive training as well as traveling all over the world to participate in Olympic qualifier matches. This is good for the shooting, but makes it hard to finish school early. The freshmen may not have monster hands, but they do have awesome eyes making them sought after by a lot of the other big shooting schools. But look where they are at! Lucky us. The MAC has not given us the schedule yet as there are a record number of schools going this year. We should know soon. And probably no ammo at the store, but wouldn’t it be great if they had a rifle tee shirt or two!

Rifle will be coming back as strong or stronger than last year. We lost a couple of power players to graduation, but that really is our goal, isn’t it? Thanks to the outstanding depth of the team, the overall performance should actually increase. And did I say depth? The bar was set pretty high last season when freshman hotshot Jenna Compton won the individual NCAA Championship. Did I say freshman? That is right; she will be back for three more seasons. This national exposure has placed Akron on the map as one of the up and coming places to get an education while participating in the sport of Olympic rifle. All of this has allowed the coach to put together an impressive freshman class for this season. The team will be joined by some remarkable talent from Vermont, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania. The team will start practicing the 31st, and open the season at Navy in the Mid Atlantic Conference (MAC) Open, on October 4th. This should be a great year!

Not really the first ever, but certianly the first in quite a long time.Compton Earns Invite to NCAA’sZips freshman hotshot, Jenna Compton has earned an invitation to the NCAA national rifle championships held at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth Texas on March 13 and 14. Less than two weeks ago, Compton captured a gold medal by finishing in first place with the air rifle at the NCAA qualifier held at The Ohio State University. Her score of 587 was not only good enough to earn gold, but has ranked her as one of the top 15 collegiate air rifle athletes in the nation. Compton has two weeks to tune up and prepare for the trip to Texas being the first to represent Akron at the NCAA’s since 1979. “This could not be happening to a more deserving athlete,” states head rifle coach Newt Engle, “Jenna works very hard for each and every point and is completely dedicated to the success of the team.” The good news about Compton’s invitation is amazingly timed only days before the Varsity A Association is holding the Varsity A Sports Hall of Fame banquet where rifle alum Mark Beres will be inducted as the latest Zips rifle member to enter the prestigious Hall of Fame. Complete story in the attachment. GO ZIPS! P090224_NCAA.pdf

Akron is in the process of changing web page providers. The change will eventually give us what we had before along with some pretty neat extra's. Problem is the old provider is being a real pain about releasing the content of the old site. Thus, sports info is being forced to rebuild the whole thing rather than starting from what we had. Thus, patience, patience. I know it is coming. Maybe not as fast as we wish, but it will eventually be better.

Good question and thanks for asking. The team uses the same equipment which is used in the summer Olympics. This equipment consists of a single shot .22 caliber rifle and a .177 caliber air rifle. The rifle is fired at 50 feet, and the air rifle is fired at 10 meters (33 ft). The smallbore rifle match is fired from the prone (lying down), Kneeling and Standing positions. They fire 20 shots in each position. Each shot is worth a maximum of 10 points. Doing the math, that gives you a possible 600 points for a perfect match. So far the record is a 598 by a guy from Korea. The air rifle is a little different. The targets are similar (10 points each), but all 60 shots are fired from the standing position. Again a possible 600 for the perfect match which has happened a few times (but more rare than winning the lottery twice this week). That said, a typical match involves getting there an hour early to set up and get in the "zone (mentally)." Then two hours for rifle, an hour break, and then two hours for air rifle. So the scores you see posted are usually how the athletes did out of a 60 shot match with a potential score of 600. Lastly, a team consists of 4 athletes. The challenge for the coach is to pick the top 4 before the match starts, and there is no substitutions. The curse (in a good way) for Akron is the fact they have so many top notch athletes that choosing the top 4 is a real challenge. What a great problem to have! Hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions. Again, thanks for asking.

Who says shooters are geeks? These guys and gals are every bit as much an athlete as the rest of the pack. I do believe that every athlete will experience pressure, nerves, and jitters at a level we can not possibly imagine while at the Olympics. NCAA championships and other national matches are absolutely NOTHING compared to the Olympics. This is exactly why most of the upper echelon shooters use the other national and international championships as nothing other than training matches to prepare for the Olympics. So yes, they can and undoubtedly were jittery. Is this an excuse for making what appears as novice or rookie mistakes? Yes, I believe it is. Look at what has happened to some of the other “favorites†in the other sports. Simple and basic mistakes have time and time again eliminated the favorite allowing the next in line to get the gold. I guess I am saying we are no different than the rest of the world. It is just a shame that two such deserving persons as Emmons and Anti had to experience such humiliating errors. Knowing both of them I feel with great assuredly that they are not concerned about their personal status at all, but are definitely devastated by letting down the USA. I for one have sent them both notes letting them know they have been and will remain my hero’s.

Kind of new at this and feel like I am going where I have not been before, (kind of trekish for those who know me). However, this is a big week for Akron Rifle. Some things we will find out this week. 1) We know the team will not qualify for NCAA's, but I have some inside information that we may have 1 or 2 individuals who may get an invite. 2) An announcement should be made today or tomorrow as to who will get the invite to go to MIT for the Mid Atlantic Rifle Conference, (the other MAC) championships. 3) Friday the bus driver will take the team to Purdue for the WIRC championships and if all goes well, we could win it all for both guns. So all in all, a pretty exciting week. As hard as these kids have been working, it feels REAL good to see them getting rewarded.