Hot off the heels of her gold medal-winning performance earlier this week in Women’s Prone Rifle at the ISSF (International Shooting Sport Federation) Junior World Cup, West Virginia University rifle team shooter Morgan Phillips continues to prove herself on the international stage with some phenomenal shooting. Her latest trip to the podium: winning the silver medal in the Women’s Three-Position Rifle event. The ISSF Junior World Cup is taking place this week in Suhl, Germany.
When Phillips (Salisbury, MD) finished Qualification, she chalked up a personal best score of 1175 at the Open (adult) level. She tallied the highest score of all competitors.
“In Qualification today, I did a really good job of focusing on each individual shot and not jumping ahead of myself,” Phillips told USA Shooting. “I stayed present and those individual shots added up.”
In the Final, Phillips didn’t move to the top of the leaderboard until the first pair of shots in standing position. The eventual winner, Zeru Wang of China took the lead in the final five shots, beating Phillips for the gold by a fraction of a point.
“I had a really controlled match today and was patient when I needed to be,” Phillips said. “Everything throughout all three positions was consistent. The last few shots of the Final, I wasn’t worried about what the other athletes were doing. I just focused on what I needed to do to execute the best shot that I could and just stayed present.”
Earlier at the ISSF Junior World Cup Germany during the Women’s Prone Rifle event, Phillips set a Junior World Record with her score of 626.8.
Phillips was joined in the Final by teammate Elizabeth Marsh (Searcy, AR) who finished in fifth place. Finishing two points shy of a potential Finals berth was Sarah Osborn (Hampton, VA) with a score of 1165. The trio of Phillips, Marsh and Osborn earned a team silver medal.
The ISSF Junior World Cup is the second such event of this season. There are 761 athletes from 61 countries competing in 15 Olympic shooting events in Suhl. Additionally, there are seven non-Olympic events; for example, Men’s and Women’s Standard Pistol and Prone Rifle.
Lead photo by Nicolo Zangirolami/ISSF
