The Nanook rifle team proved its national champion status with a 4,651 to 4,583 trouncing of the Naval Academy Midshipmen on Saturday.
The competition consisted of 60 air rifle shots and 60 smallbore shots per person within a time limit. Four marksmen from each school were chosen for both types of shooting to make up the team and their scores are tallied for the final result.
The targets were small, 50 feet away for smallbore, 15 meters for air rifle.
The win in the first match of the season is against a team with four returning All-Americans and bodes well for the rest of the season.
Alaska shot 2,350 with air rifle, lead by the Swedish Freshman Patrik Sartz who managed to find the targets' center 20 consecutive times finishing with a score of 593 out of a possible 600
The bull's-eye, worth 10 points, is a mere half of a millimeter wide.
Navy's total score for air rifle was 2,309, with their best shooter, senior Sarah Bergman barely out shooting Alaska's lowest counted score.
In smallbore, where the 'Nooks are traditionally dominant, they trumped Navy in all three positions, prone, standing and kneeling. The final result was 2,301 over 2,274.
Another Swede, senior Christian Lejon, shot 582, the best for Alaska, with smallbore rifle.
Senior Chris Schneider, with 584 was the best on team Navy.
After the official competition there was an informal shooting final called a Bundesliga match, which is traditionally German. In Bundesliga shooters are pitted against each other three separate times with five targets each time.
The solitary nature of the sport is reflected in the silence on the range and the individual processes involved with shooting.
The Bundesliga match is very different; shooters are distracted by the crowd and the music. The audience, which arrived after the real match, chants and applauds as the scores are called out.
UAF rifle coach Dan Jordan explained the special final event, which was planned to get the shooters used to dealing with adrenalin and the problems it can cause. He encouraged the spectators to "bother and distract" the shooters to "get them used to pressure so when we go to tournaments they're not affected by it."
Alaska was on the whole able to ignore the stress and beat Navy at Bundesliga, winning 11 match-ups out of 15. German senior Matthias Dierolf did particularly well at the event. He felt he had the advantage because he had more experience shooting with participant spectators than his teammates. He scores, 49, 50, 50 and 48, support his theory.
Coach Jordan took time during the final to explain certain aspects of rifle shooting like the heavy guns that can weigh 10 to 12 pounds and the strange outfits. The uniforms are stiff leather with straps and snaps that are tightened or loosened depending on the stance of the shooter.
Navy shooter Monica Amagna wasn't surprised by the loss, though she was disappointed.
"Alaska is a really good team and it's a privilege to shoot against them, despite the fact that our performance wasn't the best," Amagna said.
"We're in a different position because we're the defending champions," said Dierolf. "We don't have to beat them they have to beat us...If we perform well no one can beat us."
Alaska will visit Jacksonville State in Alabama on Nov. 12.
