North Dakota rifle competitor, coach with ND ties honored
Maple Valley alumni, Katie Zaun, competes for Texas Christian University, and Soren Butler is head rifle coach at Georgia Southern University.
Two young people from North Dakota recently were recognized for their accomplishments in the shooting sports at the end of the NCAA rifle season.
Maple Valley alumni, Katie Zaun, of Buffalo, ND, is a member of the Texas Christian University shooting team that won the recent NCAA air rifle and smallbore rifle championships, held March 8-9 at the West Virginia University Coliseum in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Soren Butler, a sophomore at TCU, is the head rifle coach at Georgia
Southern University and a Casselton, ND, native. Named 2024 Head Rifle Coach of the Year by the Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association.
Zaun’s NCAA National Champion Horned Frogs squad is the only all-female team in history to win the championship. Ranked No. 2 going into the tournament, TCU fired a 2,385 in air rifle and a 2,347 in smallbore to reach a team total 4,732 on the weekend, beating West Virginia University by three shots to take the trophy.
The Horned Frogs, under head coach Karen Monez, also won national championships in 2010, 2012 and 2019. In addition to being the overall team National Champion, TCU also claimed the air rifle championship for the fifth time in school history, previously winning the air rifle title in 2010, 2012, 2021 and 2022.
In addition to being named Rifle Athlete of the Year, Zaun for the first time in her career was named a unanimous CRCA First-Team AllAmerican for her accomplishments this season. Zaun, who became involved in the shooting sports at the age of 9, now is a six-time All
American.
As a sophomore, Zaun qualified for both finals at the NCAA championships, finishing in second place in smallbore and fourth in air rifle. On the season, she ranked second nationally in air rifle average (597.39), and third nationally in smallbore average (590.77) and aggregate average (1,188.15).
Butler’s Georgia Southern University squad also is an all-women’s rifle team. Butler and Zaun both were coached by Dan Geurts of Buffalo in his Buffalo Sharpshooters Club during their junior shooting careers.
After graduating from high school, Butler continued his education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he competed on their rifle team from 2012 until 2017 and earned AllAmerican honors twice.
He then went on to work at West Virginia University from 2017 until 2019 as a graduate assistant, and was the squad’s assistant coach from 2019 until 2022.
Virginia Thrasher, who won the 2016 Olympic Gold Medal in air rifle, was one of three West Virginia Mountaineers to capture four NCAA national titles during Butler’s stint as assistant coach.
In 2022, Butler was hired at Georgia Southern as head coach and has enjoyed continued success.
The author of this story, Rick Jorgenson, of Devils Lake, is a rifle coach for the Ramsey County 4-H Shooting Sports Club and Lake Region Shooting Sports Association. He also is newsletter editor and air rifle director for the North Dakota Shooting Sports Association.