The team took home multiple awards this season.

HILLSDALE, Mich. — The Hillsdale College precision shooting club team continued to climb the national rankings this season, taking home multiple awards and setting program records.

“We’re a club team, and we’ve come a long way since starting out in 2021,” said Katherine Vander Wall ’25, who served as the rifle team captain and is now an operations associate at Hillsdale’s John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center. “We trained hard, took challenges as opportunities, and kept improving. Despite our low club funding, run-down equipment, and limited range time, we’ve yet to encounter a problem that my team cannot find a solution to.”

In January, the team competed in the Camp Perry Open against some of the best teams in North America, including the Canadian National Team, the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, and Olympians from the Paris 2024 Olympics. The team, largely composed of freshmen, achieved its highest scores yet, with five members making the super finals. The pistol team, led by team captain Thomas Luerhmann ’25, came in sixth place, and the rifle team, led by Vander Wall, came in 11th.

At the American Smallbore Shooting Association Collegiate Nationals in March, the 50 ft. smallbore team moved from 15th to fifth in the nation, and the 10m air rifle team finished third in the nation after coming in 15th in 2022, eighth in 2023, and sixth in 2024. The teams, led by Benjamin Roche ’28, were awarded Smallbore Rifle All-Star Second Team, Air Rifle All-Star First Team, Overall All-Star First Team, Smallbore Bronze Medal, Overall Aggregate Silver Medal, Air Rifle Team Bronze Medal, and Air Rifle Champion Gold Medal.

Roche and Micah Vawter ’28 earned invitations to represent Hillsdale College in the 2025 USA Shooting National Junior Olympic Championships in Talladega, Alabama, in April.

Andre Renier, precision shooting team head coach, was awarded Coach of the Year by his peers in the Western Intercollegiate Rifle Conference, one of the nation’s oldest collegiate shooting leagues.

For a photo of the team at the Camp Perry Open, click here. For photos from Hillsdale’s John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center, click here. For a high-resolution copy of the Hillsdale College clocktower logo, click here.

About the John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center

The Halter Center is a state-of-the-art shooting facility located five miles from the Hillsdale College campus. Opened in 2008, the Center aims to introduce individuals to shooting sports and encourage interest across all levels of experience. The Halter Center also serves an educational purpose by promoting the principles of the Constitution and teaching beginner and experienced shooters in various classes. Home to Hillsdale College’s collegiate shooting teams and the USA national team, the Halter Center is also a resource for the public through camps, conferences, and other programming. For more information, visit shootingsports.hillsdale.edu.

Hillsdale College has been the home of the USA Shooting National Team since 2019 and has hosted USA Shooting Junior Olympic trap and skeet development camps and championships. The Center boasts 113 range acres, four international skeet fields, a 23-station sporting clays course, five international bunkers, an action shooting range, an enclosed and climate-controlled five-stand range, an international archery range, eight American trap fields, the AcuSport Lodge and Grille, and six cottages to accommodate overnight lodging. A 62,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor rifle and pistol building will be completed in summer 2025.

About Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College is an independent, nonsectarian, Christian liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 6.8 million. For more information, visit hillsdale.edu.