Cambria Co., PA (WJAC) — Mount Aloysius is adding a rifle team and they'll be the only college in Pennsylvania to have one.
In the fall, Mount Aloysius will become just one of seventeen colleges with a rifle team, and they will compete against Division One schools like Ohio State and West Virginia.
"I could never dream of this happening one day, so I’m blessed to be here, blessed to be the first head coach of the Mountain rifle team,” said head coach Siarra Crum.
Mounties head coach Siarra Crum graduated from Portage but says she had to go to Morehead State to compete collegiately.
Crum says an in-state team gives dozens of kids like her the option to stay in state and compete in their favorite sport.
"Those kids, if they don't want to travel far, they have a home."
The team currently has two members: Portage graduate Sydney Castel and North Star graduate Elissa Barron.
"I told them they're making history. They're going to have so many high school kids looking up to them, saying, while they can do that, I can do that right after them. I want to have them take that leap of faith with me. I can't say thank you enough to Sydney and Alyssa.”
But they need five to compete and they're looking to have a team of ten to twelve shooters. Crum says she'll be getting out to matches to recruit, as the next couple of months are influential.
"I’ll be at the state rifle match at Meyersdale, a lot of local kids will come to that. All the high school teams will shoot in that. So definitely be out there."
Rifle is a co-ed sport so men and women will compete together, and the team's home range will be in Portage.
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