Campriani takes Silver in air rifle at Olympics

Nicco Campriani became the first former West Virginia University student-athlete to earn a medal at the Summer Olympics since 2004 when he took home a silver medal in the men’s 10-meter air rifle at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Campriani, who won an individual national championship in 2011 during his final season at West Virginia, came into the Olympics as the reigning air rifle world champion, but lost by 0.6 points to Romania’s Alin George Moldoveanu.

"Nicco’s silver medal is an unbelievable achievement and the result of so much hard work over the last four years," said West Virginia head coach Jon Hammond. "He had a fantastic match (Monday), and I am happy for him to be rewarded with a medal.

"I’m very proud to be able to say I coached Nicco on the WVU rifle team. He is a fantastic ambassador for WVU rifle. He fully deserves all the credit he will receive, and hopefully we can look for more success from him at these Games."

To qualify for the finals, Campriani – who is shooting for Italy – and Moldoveanu tied, shooting an Olympic-record 599 with Campriani earning the No. 1 spot in the finals with a 56-53 inner 10s edge.

Moldoveanu secured the gold medal after shooting a 103.1 in the finals with just one shot earning him fewer than 10 points. Campriani shot a 102.5 in the finals.

Campriani will participate in two more events in the Games. He has qualified for the men’s 50-meter rifle prone, which will take place Aug. 3, as well as the men’s 50-meter rifle 3 position. He is currently ranked No. 1 in the world in 3 position.

Current WVU senior Petra Zublasing earned a 12th place finish in the women’s 10-meter air rifle.

West Virginia head coach and former WVU shooter Eric Uptagrafft will be shooting for Great Britain and the United States in the men’s prone. The qualification round begins Friday at 4 a.m.

Football single-game tickets now on sale

Single-game tickets for most of the West Virginia football team’s home games in the 2012 season went on sale Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Tickets were made available to the public for the Mountaineers’ home games against Marshall, Maryland, Baylor, Kansas State, TCU and Kansas. The only home game tickets were not available for was WVU’s Nov. 17 matchup against the preseason No. 1 team in the Big 12 Conference, Oklahoma.

Tickets began going quickly after they were made available. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, WVU Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing and Sales Matt Wells said that approximately 9,000 single-game tickets had already been sold. Tickets to the Marshall, Maryland, Baylor and Kansas State games were suspended. The only games fans were still able to buy tickets to are the TCU and Kansas games. At 5 p.m. on Monday, there were 1,500 tickets remaining for the TCU game and 3,500 left for the season finale against the Jayhawks.

"We’re happy it happened this quick," Wells said. "With the relatively limited supply, plus what we anticipated was going to be very high demand, we had a feeling they could go pretty quickly within a day or two."

Wells said that nearly 75 percent of tickets sold Monday were purchased online.

Fans can purchase tickets online at http://WVUgame.com, by calling 1-800-WVU-GAME or by going to the Mountaineer Ticket Office in the Coliseum