Normal West alumna training to win back-to-back rifle national championships for Kentucky Wildcats
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — How many Bloomington residents won an NCAA Championship in 2021? Add 20-year-old Jaden Thompson to that list. Jaden is a graduate of Normal West, currently competing on the University of Kentucky Division I rifle team that won the 2021 NCAA Rifle Championship held at Ohio State.
According to Jaden, during the 2019-2020 season, the Kentucky team “went undefeated, set many school records, and won the Great American Rifle Conference Championship,” placing them as favorites to win the 2020 national title. After COVID cut their 2020 season short, this year’s regular season Conference Title and Championship win felt like “taking care of unfinished business.”
Jaden reflects on her aspirations as a college athlete: “My sport goals are to help my team win back-to-back NCAA National Championships, break my individual personal best scores every time I shoot, and serve as a role model to inspire the next generation of competitive shooters to push for and accomplish their goals.”
The Championship is a two-day event for the top eight university rifle teams in the nation. The first day is smallbore rifle, shot with a .22 caliber single-shot rifle. This match is the same as the Olympic three-position match, with 20 shots in each position (kneeling, prone, and standing) for a possible team score of 2400. Kentucky shot a 2352, 10 points ahead of the field. With the best collegiate shooters in the nation in the field, it would be a tight 2nd day match to the Championship.
The second day is for air rifle. This Olympic event is 60 shots over 10 meters. The skill of shooters has gotten so precise, the center dot (what used to be a “bullseye”) is half the size of years past. Jaden’s 592 of 600 possible contributed to the team’s final win. UK won the NCAA National Rifle Championship for their third-ever Rifle National with a score of 4731 of 4800.
Jaden first learned to shoot air rifles in the Illinois 4-H program, then moved to the Central Illinois Precision Shooting (CIPS) team to shoot precision air rifles. With a solid work ethic and the motivation to improve, her performance at competitions soon climbed the score reports, earning her a collection of award medals.
CIPS Coach Joe Miller explains, “Shooting is an extremely difficult sport that requires balance, coordination, and training to control the outcome of every shot. The real fun of coaching young shooters is to watch them gain discipline and self-control as they progress to each of the goals that they set for themselves. It’s the simple life skills that you can see grow in so many young people as they work to improve in this sport.”
In her four-year high school career, Jaden won numerous local in State matches and has competed across the country. Some notable tournaments include a trip to Colorado Springs for the opportunity to shoot at the USA Shooting Junior Olympics, Port Clinton, Ohio for the Civilian Marksmanship Program’s National Junior Air Gun Championships, and Ft. Benning, Georgia for the US Army Junior National Championships. She also represented the State of Illinois as a member of the Illinois State Rifle Association’s Junior Smallbore team and while shooting the NRA Smallbore National Championship at Camp Perry, Ohio. She won four team National Smallbore matches over the years.
With this success and her sophomore year at Kentucky behind her, she has the potential to be a shining star on the national stage for several years to come. UK Rifle Coach Harry Mullins explains, “Jaden has grown so much as a person and an athlete. This has also been a very focused team. I feel they are collectively one of the hardest working teams that I have had in my career. I am very proud of the effort they give both as students and as athletes. Jaden has been a big part of that with her tremendous work ethic.”
Central Illinois Precision Shooting (CIPS) has been serving local athletes since 2014. To find out more information about CIPS, visit www.cipshooters.org or Central Illinois Precision Shooting on Facebook.
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