Through the end of the 2019-20 academic year, we will be posting a season recap for each UTM athletic program. This edition of the “Skyhawk Season in Review” series features the rifle squad.
UTM posted another solid season under head coach MJ Vowell, boasting victories over eventual Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) champion Morehead State (4,599-4,596 on Nov. 8-9) and the University of Alabama – Birmingham (UAB) (4,573-4,553 on Jan. 25). The Skyhawks established a season-high in aggregate scoring with 4,628 points against Memphis in the NCAA Qualifier on Feb. 23 – the fourth time the squad had eclipsed the 4,600-point plateau in 2019-20.
The 2020 OVC Championship was held on the UTM campus, as the Skyhawks hosted the two-day February event for the first time since 2012. At the conclusion of the championship, a total of four UTM honorees received postseason accolades. Rachel Sprague was named to the All-OVC smallbore first team, Kaitlin Korinek claimed All-OVC smallbore second team status while Nick Fares nabbed OVC All-Newcomer honors in both smallbore and air rifle. Vowell also became only the second Skyhawk to be elected OVC Rifle Coach of the Year.
The hardware continued to roll in when UTM received the OVC’s Team Sportsmanship Award on Feb. 28. It marked the sixth time in 15 years that the Skyhawk rifle program won the honor (no other OVC rifle program owns more than four such awards).
Courtesy of a season-high 593 score in air rifle at the aforementioned NCAA Qualifier, Korinek earned one of the four at-large spots in the 2020 NCAA Championships. The senior from Irwin, Pennsylvania, became only the sixth individual in UTM history to nab an at-large bid into the national championship event.
Korinek, who piled up her seventh career All-OVC accolade in 2019-20, attended the practice round in Lexington, Kentucky, on the morning of March 12 before the NCAA announced later that day it was cancelling all remaining Championship events because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Academically, the Skyhawk trio of Celia Gelpey, Korinek and Rachel Mills were three of just 157 student-athletes nationally to secure Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association Scholastic All-American status.
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