The No. 3 Kentucky rifle team finished second at the Great American Rifle Conference Championships this weekend with a score of 4,686.

The second-place finish is an improvement from their third-place finish in the 2017 conference championships. The Cats posted the highest air rifle score out of all the other teams with 2,367.

Kentucky finished the championships with 4,686, which was 20 points behind the conference champions and the No. 1 ranked team in the country, West Virginia.

Junior Hanna Carr and freshman Hailee Sigmon both qualified for Saturday’s air rifle final with scores of 592 and 594, respectively.

Sigmon went on to finish in second place in the air rifle, just one point behind Ginny Thrasher of West Virginia, who is also an Olympic gold medalist.

Carr went on to finish third in combined scores with a 1,177 aggregate score. Junior Cathryn Papasodora finished one spot behind Carr in the combined scores with a 1,176 aggregate score.

“I’m very happy for the folks that made it to the finals. The atmosphere was intense and team scores were very close coming into today,” head coach Harry Mullins said in a press release after the competition. “The air team really worked though their trouble spots better than we have in a while in this atmosphere. It was exciting all the way until the last shot.”

The Cats only have one competition remaining on their schedule, and that is the NCAA Championships on March 9-10.

The Cats qualified for their 18th consecutive NCAA championships and were given the fourth seed last Wednesday. Kentucky last won the national championship in 2011.

“Overall, we know the elements we have to strengthen going into the NCAA Championships, so now it’s time to get back to work,” Mullins said in the press release.

Kentucky carries a lot of momentum into March after Carr, Papasodora, Sigmon, Henrik Larsen, Billy Azzinaro and Jason Spaude took home awards for their performances this season.