The firing line at the 2012 Standard Pistol Championship

Columbus, Georgia – Hot off her win in Women's Intercollegiate Sport Pistol, Heather Deppe of the U.S. Military Academy stepped to the line for a shot at another title - the Standard Pistol Championship.

Fortune, unfortunately, was just out of reach this time for the young cadet. Despite posting a 562, Deppe could not overcome Nick Mowrer's exceptionally accurate shooting. The Pikes Peak deadeye blazed through the targets to take his second title of the year with a 572. If he isn't careful, Mowrer just might end up repeating his 2011 performance where he swept the pistol championships.

More

Top Two Female Pistol Shooters from 2011 meet again in 2012

Heather Deppe takes aim on her way to the Women's Sport Pistol title

Columbus, Georgia – Last year, the United States Naval Academy's Kirstin Asdal edged out the United States Military Academy's Heather Deppe for a 655.3 to 653.9 victory in the NRA's Intercollegiate Women's Sport Pistol Championship at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Those same two shooters found themselves in the finals again this year. It was evident, however, that Deppe spent a good deal of 2011 eating her Wheaties as she came back to Georgia with a vengeance — a crushing score of 663.3 dwarfed Asdal's 634.8. Deppe's overwhelming performance meant that the two would trade their positions from last year as Deppe claimed the NRA's 2012 Intercollegiate Women's Sport Pistol title.

More

The final event in the NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Championships is the Open Air Pistol Championship.

Shot from a distance of ten meters, the championship's course of fire is fairly straight forward - 60 shots over one hour and 45 minutes.

The schools fielding shooters vying for the team title were the USMA, USNA, Ohio St., MIT, Citadel, USCGA, Michigan St., Texas A&M, Yale and NDSU.

Ranked #1 in Open Air after NRA Sectionals, The United States Military Academy, held on to its position and won their second team title of the 2011 championships with a final score of 2224.

Finishing off his sweep of this year's individual category, Nick Mowrer of Pikes Peak Community College displayed exemplary shooting and took the Open Air individual title with a 678.4 score. Nick entered the finals with an eight point lead, which was extended to twelve after he posted an impressive 102.4 ten shots later.

More

Women's Sport Pistol Championship was shot during the second half of day two at the NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Championships.

The championship is shot in two courses. The first is the Precision Course of 30 shots. Six series of five shots in an allotted time of five minutes per series.

The second course is the Rapid Fire Course. Like the one before it, this course is six series of five shots. Where the two courses differ is during each of the series the target appears five times, for three seconds each time, and pauses for seven seconds between each appearance. Only one shot may be fired during each appearance. 

More

The second day of this year's NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Championships started with the Standard Pistol Championship.

Course of fire for the championship is 60 shots divided into three stages of 20 shots. Each stage consistis of four series of five shots. The first stage's series must be shot within a time limit of 150 seconds per series. Trimming a little time, series in the second stage must be fired in 20 seconds and the third stage's time limit is further reduced to 10 seconds per series.

The United States Naval Academy, United States Military Academy, Ohio State, Citadel, Oregon State, United States Coast Guard Academy, MIT, Texas A&M, Yale and United States Merchant Marine Academy were all represented in the team championship by accomplished members who had shot their way through NRA Sectionals to get to this point, however after the third stage had been fired the United States Military Academy had emerged victorious with a total team score of 2121.

Unlike the other disciplines' championships, Standard Pistol does not have a final to determine the individual champion. At the conclusion of Standard Pistol's three stages, the shooter with the highest total score is the new champion.

Tallying up another championship under his belt this year, Nick Mowrer of Pikes Peak Community College shot a 569 to claim the Standard Pistol Individual title.

To determine second and third among individuals a tie-breaker was held between Joe Totts of Ohio State and Heather Deppe of the U.S. Military Academy, who had both fired a 547. In an exciting round of shooting, both players scored 0's on the same shot due to the time limit but were unaware their opponent had also done so. Not knowing the other had also shot a 0, each shooter thought their scores would be significantly lower than their opponent until total scores were announced. In the end, Joe edged out Heather for this year's silver by a margin of two points.

After looking up at the digital scoreboards to see just how close their scores had been, Heather only had one word for the tie-breaker, 'epic.'

More