COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (April 16, 2018)
A weekend of Women’s Three-Position Rifle competition wrapped today at the National Junior Olympic Shooting Championships (NJOSC) with two-time defending NCAA Smallbore National Champion and last year’s NJOSC bronze medalist Morgan Phillips (Salisbury, Maryland) taking top honors in the event.
Phillips, a sophomore at West Virginia, had the gold medal virtually in hand after two Qualification matches. She entered the Final with a two-day Qualification total of 2325 – 12-points higher than the second-highest Qualification of 2313 posted by eventual silver medalist Elizabeth Marsh (Searcy, Arkansas). Though Phillips didn’t need the additional points earned by placement in the Final (eight for first, seven for second and so on), she also won the Final by 1.6 points over Marsh.
“I was sick for the whole thing, but just kind of did my thing when I got to the matches and I think it went well,” Phillips said. “In the Final, I just kind of ignored what I did in Qualification and had fun with it and it went well.
In addition to their medal finishes and nominations to the National Junior Team, Phillips, Marsh and bronze medalist Kristen Hemphill (Lohn, Texas) also earned the chance to represent the United States at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship later this summer in Changwon, South Korea.
Phillips was part of the Junior World Championship Team that competed last summer in Suhl, Germany where she finished with the top Qualification score and in fourth place overall. Marsh and Hemphill will make their World Championship debuts in Changwon.
“I’m just hoping to do something similar this year,” Phillips said. “It’s going to take a lot of training.”
Marsh’s second-place finish in the Final was enough
