Pistol: The secret success to Ohio State’s three-peat national champions

Sophia Wohl
Thu, 02 Nov 2023 02:47:48 +0000
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The 2023-24 pistol team on media day.
Credit: Ohio State Athletics

The Buckeyes pistol team is locked, loaded and ready.

The reigning three-peat national champions are coming into this season ablaze. Ohio State’s pistol team is one that seemingly cannot be stopped.?

Taking place in Ohio State’s Converse Hall — home of the Army ROTC program — pistol is a coed collegiate sport, run by head coach Emil Milev and assistant coach Anthony Lutz that competes in three events: coed air pistol, rapid fire — which is strictly men — and sport or standard pistol, which is strictly women.?

“An air pistol shoots pellets, and sport pistol and rapid-fire pistol shoot 22-caliber rounds,” Milev said. “So, the pistol shoots the pellet, the pellet goes through the target and whatever lines it touches, that’s the score you get for every shot, and each competition is 60 shots.”?

All three events are shot at different distances and speeds, Henry Leverett, a senior on the team, said.??

“Air pistol is shot by 10 mm pellets at a small target. Standard pistol is a fast shot, with further distance, which is harder to be accurate,” Leverett said. “Then you have international, rapid-fire shooting of 25 mm pellets, which is a men’s competition.”

Ohio State’s pistol squad is full of athletes with titles to their name and championship rings to prove it. The brotherly duo of Jack Leverett and Henry Leverett were Olympians who competed in Tokyo back in 2021.

But the family line doesn’t stop there. Their younger sister, sophomore Abbie Leverett, is climbing up to her brother’s success as she holds the title of a two-time national Junior Olympian.

Henry Leverett and his siblings, from Bainbridge, Georgia, said they were unaware of pistol until they came across the sport in a magazine article. Quickly, their family was amazed by the idea of pistol, so they attended 4-H, a program in Georgia that carried the sport as an extracurricular.?

From there, their family never stopped competing, ultimately landing them at Ohio State.?

The Leverett siblings helped Ohio State earn first place at their home range in both the air and sport or standard events Oct. 13 and 14 against Navy.?

Henry Leverett said the team comes together as one, a key to success.?

“I’m a puzzle piece,” Henry Leverett said. “We are pieces of a bigger puzzle.”