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Nine shooters from the West Virginia University rifle team earned a combined 25 honors on the 2021-22 All-Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) Team, the league announced.
Of WVU’s 25 All-GARC honors this year, eight student-athletes made the smallbore team, seven made the air rifle team and eight were a part of the combined (smallbore and air rifle) team.
Additionally, freshman Natalie Perrin was named the GARC’s Rookie of the Year, after averaging scores of 582.5 in smallbore, 593 in air rifle and 1175.5 overall in 2021-22. The Coopersville, Michigan, native is the first Mountaineer to win GARC Rookie of the Year since Milica Babic in 2017 and the eighth in program history.
Nine shooters from the West Virginia University rifle team earned a combined 25 honors on the 2021-22 All-Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) Team, the league announced.
Of WVU’s 25 All-GARC honors this year, eight student-athletes made the smallbore team, seven made the air rifle team and eight were a part of the combined (smallbore and air rifle) team.
Additionally, freshman Natalie Perrin was named the GARC’s Rookie of the Year, after averaging scores of 582.5 in smallbore, 593 in air rifle and 1175.5 overall in 2021-22. The Coopersville, Michigan, native is the first Mountaineer to win GARC Rookie of the Year since Milica Babic in 2017 and the eighth in program history.
Nine shooters from the West Virginia University rifle team earned a combined 25 honors on the 2021-22 All-Great American Rifle Conference (GARC) Team, the league announced.
Of WVU’s 25 All-GARC honors this year, eight student-athletes made the smallbore team, seven made the air rifle team and eight were a part of the combined (smallbore and air rifle) team.
Additionally, freshman Natalie Perrin was named the GARC’s Rookie of the Year, after averaging scores of 582.5 in smallbore, 593 in air rifle and 1175.5 overall in 2021-22. The Coopersville, Michigan, native is the first Mountaineer to win GARC Rookie of the Year since Milica Babic in 2017 and the eighth in program history.
Senior Verena Zaisberger represented West Virginia in the GARC’s Scholar-Athlete category for the second consecutive season.
“This has been another year with a really deep team and these conference awards really illustrate that,” WVU coach Jon Hammond said. “To have eight out of 10 be all-conference in smallbore, and also combined, and nine of our 10 athletes receive at least one all-conference award is very impressive. There are some exceptional athletes in our conference, and we have to keep pushing to reach their level. But we have many team members capable of doing that, and I look forward to seeing how they can finish this year.
“It’s also great to see Natalie win the freshman of the year award. She’s had a wonderful freshman season. She works hard every day and has done everything we have asked of her, and this is nice recognition of the effort she puts in every day.”
In smallbore, sophomore Tal Engler (587.00) was selected to the first team, while junior Akihito Shimizu (586.71), Zaisberger (586.14), junior Malori Brown (586.00) and sophomore Molly McGhin (585.83) were named to the relay’s second team.
Senior Jared Eddy (584.29), sophomore Matt Sanchez (583.14) and Perrin (582.5) earned honorable mention status in smallbore.
In air rifle, Engler (595.00) and junior Calista Smoyer (595.00) were named to the first team, while Shimizu (593.57), McGhin (593.33) and Perrin (593.00) garnered second-team honors.
Zaisberger (592.86) and Sanchez (592.71) were selected as honorable mentions in air rifle this year.
Engler swept first-team honors and was named to this year’s combined team, with an 1182.000 average. Shimizu (1180.286), McGhin (1179.167) and Zaisberger (1179.000) were all named to the second team for aggregate score.
Smoyer (1175.857), Sanchez (1175.857), Perrin (1175.500) and Brown (1175.143) earned honorable mention status in the category to round out this year’s awards.
Next up, West Virginia travels to West Point, New York, on Monday, Feb. 28, for the 2021-22 GARC Championships, hosted by Army. The event will be held at the Tronsrue Marksmanship Center in West Point. A start time for the GARC Championships will be announced in the coming days.
