ANNISTON, Ala.  – MIT rifle student-athlete Eleanor Yang placed 74th out of 193 competitors in air rifle with a two-day score of 1,228.3 at the USA Shooting Rifle Junior Olympic National Championship, held April 11-12 at the Judith Legerski Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) Competition Center in Anniston, Alabama. Yang qualified for the championship for the third time and made her first appearance at the event since 2023.
 
To qualify for the championship, athletes were required to compete in a designated qualifying match and meet or exceed a cutoff score established by USA Shooting. Head coach Melissa Mulloy-Mecozzi selected the Engineers' Beanpot match on February 7 as Yang's qualifier, where Yang posted a score of 581 — just four points shy of the automatic qualifying standard in air rifle. On March 6, however, USA Shooting lowered the cutoff score for the Under-21 women's division to 574 to expand the competition field, earning Yang an invitation to compete.
 
The championship used a decimal scoring system in which each shot is scored based on its proximity to the center of the target. A score of 10.9 represents a perfectly centered shot, while a 10.0 is awarded when a shot barely breaks the line of the inner 10 ring.
 
Yang opened the competition with a score of 611.9, placing 89th overall after the first day. She followed with a personal-best decimal score of 616.4 on day two, highlighted by a career-long streak of 17 consecutive shots scoring 10 or better. The strong performance elevated her to 74th place in the final standings.
 
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