LEXINGTON, Ky. – The West Virginia University rifle team is back on the mountaintop of collegiate rifle, winning the 2025 National Championship at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington on Saturday for their first title in eight years. The Mountaineers are now 20-times national champions, recovering from a third-placed start in smallbore to storm back to take the title after a stellar performance in the air rifle for their first title since 2017. Read more WVU Rifle wins 20th national championship, breaking eight-year drought below
Smallbore
The smallbore portion did not go to plan for WVU, as their score of 2350 placed them behind Kentucky (2354) and Alaska Fairbanks (2355).
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Sophomore Griffin Lake placed sixth with a 420.3 score in the individual smallbore finals, while senior Natalie Perin was in eighth place with 407.2. Cecelia Ossi of Alaska Fairbanks won the individual title after shooting 464.7 in the finals.
Finishing behind the Mountaineers in the smallbore was TCU (2335), Ole Miss (2333), former WVU assistant coach Soren Butler’s Georgia Southern (2333), Murray State (2332), and Air Force (2321).
Air Rifle
But the air rifle section was where the Mountaineers would clinch history.
WVU won the air rifle section with a team score of 2388, ahead of Kentucky’s 2383, while Alaska Fairbanks fell all the way to seventh in the air rifle, with a score of 2371. This gave the Mountaineers an aggregate score of 2388, just ahead of UK’s 2387. Alaska Fairbanks came third with 4726, followed by Ole Miss (4716), Georgia Southern (4713), TCU (4712), Air Force (4703) and Murray State (4693).
Ole Miss tied Kentucky for second place in the air rifle with a 2383 score, as they were followed by Air Force (2382), Georgia Southern (2380), TCU (2367), as well as Murray State tying Alaska Fairbanks for last place with a 2371 score.
Freshman Ashlyn Blake finished third in the air rifle final, scoring 228.9, while Perrin placed fifth with a 185.7 score, as Lake just missed out on the final eight with a ninth-place 597 score in the qualifiers. Audrey Gogniat of Ole Miss won the individual title in air rifle with a score of 251.0, edging out Kentucky’s Braden Peiser in the tiebreaker by 10.6-9.8.
In addition to this being WVU’s 20th national championship, it is also head coach Jon Hammond’s seventh national championship, as the Aberdeen, Scotland native broke an eight-year drought.
West Virginia finished the season 13-0, with a 5-0 Great American Rifle Conference record, also winning both the GARC regular season title and winning the GARC Conference Championship, also marking Hammond’s seventh perfect season.
WVU Rifle wins 20th national championship
