4-minute read
Ashlyn Blake has dreamed of being an Olympian since she was a little girl.
Initially, she wanted to be a gymnast, though she had never even attempted a cartwheel. When Blake started ski racing, she thought that might be her Olympic sport. But in the eighth grade, she realized that wasn’t going to work out either.
Embracing her family legacy may be the Sparta teen’s secret weapon. The Pope John senior got closer to achieving her Olympic dream on Wednesday, signing a National Letter of Intent with West Virginia University, one of the country’s top college riflery programs.
Blake is a fourth-generation competition shooter on her father’s side. In the late 1800s, her great-grandfather, Walter Blake, was one of the first competition shooters. Her grandfather, also named Walter Blake, trained World War II Army recruits before they headed to the Pacific theater. Father Craig Blake competed in riflery at St. John’s University in New York City.
Now, Ashlyn Blake excels at both 10-meter air and small-bore rifle shooting. She is one of only six junior (under-18) competitors to be nationally ranked in both disciplines.
“They are the legacy school,” Blake said of West Virginia, which has won 19 NCAA rifle titles since 1951. “I aspired to be on the team, because that would be so cool. I have the ability to become an Olympian, and go beat China and India.”
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High schools in only eight states offered rifle teams last year, with 2,761 participants according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Georgia is home to the most high school rifle teams, with 99 boys and 78 girls squads. Hawaii and Pennsylvania are next, with about a third each.
New Jersey is not on the very short list, so Ashlyn has had to find training elsewhere.
“We’re an independent person coming out of the middle of nowhere, a ‘Where’d you come from?’ type of thing,” her father said. “It’s more of an uphill battle for us, because we don’t have a high school team. We don’t have the support of schools and states that promote it. She’s a unicorn.”
Shooting star
Craig Blake inspired Ashlyn to first pick up a rifle in August 2019. He would reminisce about his competitions at the family dinner table, and Ashlyn said, “I want to do what you did.”
She started at an open house for kids at the Franklin Rifle and Revolver Club, wearing a T-shirt and using a borrowed rifle. Craig and Ashlyn Blake went to a precision shooting club every Wednesday.
Ashlyn received her first competition .22 small-bore rifle for Christmas 2020. It cost about $7,000. She competed at Junior Olympics in April 2021 and then nationals. She has also attended two summer shooting camps: at West Point and with 2016 air-rifle gold medalist Ginny Thrasher.
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For Christmas 2021, Ashlyn got her first air rifle and a custom competition suit.
She set up a 10-meter (33-foot) target at home that requires her to shoot between light fixtures and a pool table, through a set of French doors and a home gym, and into a utility closet. Blake’s electronic target measures accuracy and catches the lead pellets before they hit the furnace.
Blake shoots a Walther KK500 .22 caliber long rifle and just upgraded to a Feinwerkbau 900 air rifle.
“The thing that makes her really strong is her mind,” said Ashlyn’s coach Lucas Kozeniesky, a two-time U.S. Olympian. “That focus is difficult to coach. For her, that’s what sets her apart from her peers: her ability to shift the narrative in her brain, and analyze and prepare and win this thing.”
Go west, young woman
Blake had narrowed her list down to three colleges by the end of her junior year: the United States Naval Academy, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and West Virginia.
With its five-year post-graduate military service requirement, Navy seemed incompatible with Blake’s Olympic goals.
She made her official visit to Morgantown in early September. A couple of weeks later, Blake talked to West Virginia coach John Hammond at the first day of USA Shooting’s 2024 Rifle & Pistol Olympic Trials, where she competed in air rifle.
Hammond was the first to give her an offer. Blake visited Alaska-Fairbanks on the first weekend of October, and received an offer on Oct. 19.
The next day, she verbally committed to West Virginia. It felt like fate, since she’d bought a Mountaineers rifle T-shirt while competing on campus at the Walther Cup as a sophomore. Blake also got autographed posters of the West Virginia and West Point marksmen.
Blake signed when the early period opened on Wednesday. The NLI is essentially a one-year contract in which a student promises to attend the college and remain academically eligible in exchange for athletics-based financial aid.
Football players can sign their NLI on December 20, 21 and 22.
“I can achieve anything, really, as long as I work hard and do everything right, and follow my process while shooting,” said Blake, who plans to major in computer science and hopes to work for a space-related employer, like NASA or SpaceX.
“I can win everything. I would like to go to the NCAAs all four years, and win the NCAAs as many years as I can, and definitely have my team win the NCAAs and get a ring.”
Jane Havsy is a storyteller for the Daily Record and DailyRecord.com, part of the USA TODAY Network. For full access to live scores, breaking news and analysis, subscribe today.
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Email: JHavsy@gannett.com
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