Handling distractions has seemed to be the Racers’ specialty this season.

After knocking off two top-five teams in Jacksonville State and Texas Christian, scoring solid rounds on the road and a month and a half layoff the Murray State rifle team earned its second tri-match victory of the season to start the spring semester.

This is in spite of the fact the team could not practice for two days leading up to Saturday’s match due to the campus-wide shutdown that took away power from Pat Spurgin Rifle Range.

However, the layoff and unavailability of the range made no difference. The squad shot a combined score of 4,632, defeating North Carolina State by 20 points and Columbus State by 107 points.

Head Coach Allan Lollar attributed the win to the team’s overall past experience and the scouting philosophies of the program.

“(The win) says a lot about them staying prepared during the holidays and coming back in a pretty good place,” Lollar said. “It was a good match to start with. There’s not any way to force experience or maturity on anybody. They have to be in that situation and have some success handling it.”

He said as the season develops, the next time the team runs into difficult situations it won’t be as nervous because it has handled them before.

“Having shot in big matches with those kinds of distractions is what we look for when we’re recruiting young people to shoot here,” Lollar said. “Coming here with that is a plus and if they don’t have that, they’ll get it when they get here.”

The Racers were given big days from freshman Katarina Bisercic, junior Kelsey Emme and senior Bill Harvey.

Bisercic finished first overall in air rifle with a 593 and shot a 572 in smallbore, good for fifth overall. Emme and Harvey paced the Racers in smallbore, shooting 574 each.

Emme also tied for third in air rifle with a 585. Sophomore Tessa Howald tied Bisercic with a 572 to round out smallbore for the Racers.

In air rifle, Howald finished third for Murray State at 582 and senior Michael Burzynski capped the discipline, shooting a score of 580.

“We had a lot of good things going on that I was real happy with,” Lollar said. “It’s a good beginning to the season and it was a good match to start with. I think we did a good job.”

The Racers now turn their sights to yet another big test when they travel to West Point, N.Y., Jan. 17 and 18 to face No. 7 Army and No. 1 Kentucky.

“It’s exciting to go somewhere we normally don’t get to go, and we get to shoot against a couple of good teams we compete against on a national level,” Lollar said. “They know what they need to do to get ready and you depend on them to do the right things.”

Story by Nick Dolan, Assistant Sports Editor