The NC State rifle team shot its way to victory Saturday at the first South Eastern Air Rifle Conference of the year in Lexington, Virginia, at the Virginia Military Institute Rifle Range. The team finished with a total score of 4,593 points combined from smallbore and air rifle, topping Virginia Military Institute mixed and women, North Georgia, and Citadel men and women.

This was the team’s first competition of the year, and they had limited practice time, according to head coach Keith Miller.

“Overall, it went OK; it’s a very early match for us,” Miller said. “We had a bit of a late start this year because of a couple scheduling issues. We really didn’t have a clear idea of where things would come out. The bottom line is it worked fairly well, not exactly how we expected, but we didn’t have exact expectations. We wanted to get out there and let some of the new kids show us what they’ve learned in practices, and for some of the older returners coming back from the offseason to see where they are. So it went fairly well, but we still have a couple things to work on.”

With the limited opportunity to practice, this was a good early opportunity to assess the team, Miller said.

“The main thing, and this was mostly expected, is we have a lot of work to do in smallbore. That’s where we were furthest behind in our training,” Miller said. “Our air rifle was pretty solid. I really didn’t have any surprises there. We were mostly relying on our returners in air rifle, and that’s exactly how it worked out. Our top five air rifle scorers were the main people we relied on last year. Smallbore was a bit more mixed — we had two freshmen in our top five. We really didn’t have a good idea of how they’d perform; it was a great surprise to see Tyler Lefebvre do so well in smallbore. He ended up leading us.” 

In addition to the freshman Lefebvre, who put up a score of 569 in smallbore, returning junior Lucas Kozeniesky had a solid performance, putting up a combined score of 566. According to his coach, that is just scratching the surface of what Kozeniesky can do, as he is again expected to lead the team this year. 

“We’re still relying on Kozeniesky, our MVP from the last couple years, and expect to do so,” Miller said. “He had kind of a flat day in both air rifle and smallbore, not a big problem, just a little flat. I’m not worried about him. He’s a really strong competitor. The next match he’ll probably really have a breakout.  

“I think he’s ready to prove some stuff to himself. He’s had a lot of training, he’s had international experience, so he’s going to be our leader all in all, I expect, throughout the year.  All that being said, he’s going to have some strong competition any given day from others on our team. We have a couple really strong air rifle shooters. Smallbore’s a little harder to predict. He’ll probably have challengers there as well, but we expect him to be near the top in both in most of our matches.”

Next up is the team’s first Great American Rifle Conference match. 

“We’ve got a couple off-weeks for some training, and then our next match will be at Navy on Oct. 17,” Miller said. “That will be a very important match for us. It’s our first Great American Rifle Conference match of the season. Navy is a specific team that we’re very competitive against. A big goal is definitely to defeat them. We can do it. We’ve just got a few things to work on between now and then.”