UAFS Lion Rifles beat the Razorback shooters

story and photo submitted by the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith

Friday the 13th proved very lucky for Lion Rifles, the air rifle club team at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. They took first place at a three-position rifle match at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

UAFS shooters racked up a team score of 881 points to edge the University of Arkansas’ 853. Third and fourth places were claimed by a pair of teams from Northeastern State University from Tahlequah, Okla. In all, 27 shooters from the three universities competed, making it the largest match ever hosted by the University of Arkansas’ chapter of the Pershing Rifles.

"This was a really nice match for our rookies," said Lion Rifles faculty adviser and coach Roy Hill. "We had several first-semester shooters get their initial match experiences, and they did very well for the first time out."

The three-position match saw shooters shoot 10 shots each from prone, standing and kneeling positions.

Justin Whisenhunt of Poteau led the way for UAFS in prone, posting a 92 out of a possible 100. Alex Chanprasith of Fort Smith recorded the highest standing score for UAFS with an 82. Andy Land of Dover added a 79 in kneeling. Emily Proffitt of Ozark and Mike Defoore of Van Buren also turned in solid performances in their first-ever rifle matches.

"I cannot say enough about how hard all these newcomers worked and how well they handled match pressure in their first competition," said Hill. "That’s really impressive."

All competitors fired an additional 10 shots from standing for a separate Standing 200 match. The Standing 200 match was taken by Anna Minor of the University of Arkansas, who had a 147 out of 200. And UAFS’s Alex Chanprasith was only six points behind with a 141 for second place out of 27 competitors.

"Alex really shot well on his first target with the 82," said Hill. "He had an off performance on his second target with just a 59, but even with that drop off, he was still very close to winning the match anyway."

Hill sees the sporter match as a good way to help the rookies transition to the precision rifle team that competes at several NCAA varsity matches each year. The next match for the UAFS three-position shooters will be in the spring 2010 semester. The UAFS precision rifle team will travel to Texas Christian University for the Horned Frog Invitational.