Lexington, VA – March 7, 2009- Call them Champions! On Saturday, the SUNY Maritime co-ed rifle team won the Mid Atlantic Rifle Conference (MAC) championship at the Kilbourne Hall Rifle Range on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute. Maritime out-shot their opponents, the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP) by a wide margin. 

The Privateers were led by Brandon Webber (Massena, N.Y./Massena) who shot a team high with a score of 547. Fellow teammate Amanda Thompson (Evergreen, Colo./Lakewood) also put in a stellar performance with a 532. Mack DeMarco (Staten Island, NY / Curtis)  nailed a 518, while James Worrall (Arlington, Va./Yorktown) (Arlington, VA/Yorktown) recorded a 513 as SUNY Maritime bested USP by 150 points.

The victory was particularly sweet because of the close loss at last year's conference championship at MIT. 

"As a coach, I'm proud of the entire team for their discipline and their commitment on and off the range this year," head coach Dorion Germany said. "I think winning this championship shows how serious the team is about improving every season and how hard they are working to make progress as a program…and I'm confident that we'll continue to get better. Most exciting is that we'll be able to go out next year and defend our championship and I think that goal will provide an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm, determination and focus.”