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The Alaska Nanooks came through with golden colors on Saturday to claim the 10th NCAA Rifle championship for the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Trailing Army by six points after Friday’s smallbore competition, the Nanooks blew the Black Knights out of the water in the air rifle portion of the match to claim the overall NCAA title by a 10-point margin.

“They all did amazingly well today,” third-year coach Dan Jordan said in telephone interview after Saturday night’s awards banquet where six different Nanooks earned All-American honors from the National Rifle Association. “It was pretty neat to watch.”

The Nanooks have won nine of the last 10 NCAA titles and three straight, including last year’s match at the Patty Center.

“What really made this exciting for me is that these are all of my shooters,” Jordan said. “None of these kids are carryovers from another coach.”

The 10-person Alaska roster contains six sophomores and four freshman, which means the Nanooks should be right in the thick of things for the next couple of years.

“To win it with three sophomores (Patrik Sartz, Christofer Olofsson and William Galligan) and two freshman (Cody Rutter and Taylor Beard) shows you the kind of depth we have,” said Jordan, who has coached the Nanooks to a national championship in each of the past three years. “It shows that we can be a very good team for the next couple of years if we just keep at it.”

Saturday, the team of Rutter, Beard, Sartz and Olofsson posted a score of 2,350 compared to Army’s 2,334. That was more than enough for the Nanooks to claim the team crown.

Alaska captured the title with 4,662 points, while Army was second with 4,652 and Texas Christian was a distant third with 4,627.

Nebraska was fourth with 4,635, followed by Kentucky, which beat the Nanooks in a dual meet during the regular season, with 4,623, West Virginia with 4,616, Navy with 4,610 and Nevada with 4,591.

Sartz, from Stora Sundby, Sweden, captured the individual air rifle national championship with a scored 194 and a final of 102.4 for a total of 696.4.

Josh Albright of Navy was second at 693.9 and Olofsson earned the bronze medal with a 693.8. After being the only Nanook to reach the smallbore final on Friday when he finished eighth, Rutter placed sixth on Saturday with a 688.3.

“I figured Patrik and Christofer would do well,” Jordan said. “It was nice to see Cody put up two big scores in the biggest match of his life. He was the only one on the team to make both finals.”

Sartz led the Nanooks in the team competition on Saturday with a 594, followed by Olofsson with a 592, Rutter with a 586 and Beard with a 578.

Down six points going into the first of three relays, Rutter erased the entire deficit and gave the Nanooks a one-point lead.

Beard and Sartz helped the Nanooks boost the lead to five points. With Olofsson shooting in the final relay, Jordan said he was pretty comfortable how the match would shake out.

“I was pretty sure that Christofer was going to put up a good score,” he said. “He was shooting right next to Army’s Stephen Sherer, so that made things even more interesting.

Olofsson had a two-point lead over Sherer going into the final round and then posted a perfect score of 100 to seal the deal for the Nanooks.

Sartz, Olofsson, Rutter and Beard were first-team All-Americans in air rifle, while freshman Ida Petersen was a second-team selection.

Sartz and Olofsson also were first-team smallbore All-Americans and Galligan was an honorable mention selection.

Other members of the Nanook rifle squad this season are sophomores Jace Bures, Layne Lewis and Becky Hershberger and freshman Charles Whitmer.

A welcome home party for the national champions is scheduled tonight at Fairbanks International Airport. The team is scheduled to arrive on Alaska Airlines flight 195 at 10:07 p.m.

The public is invited to attend the event.