Jun 18, 2016 3 min read

The Dormont-Mt. Lebanon Sportsman’s Club didn’t win the Pittsburgh and Suburban Rifle League championship earlier this year, losing to the Frazier-Simplex Rifle Club in a tiebreaking match.

But Dormont-Mt. Lebanon, which is located near Eighty Four, found out this week that it took home a bigger prize.

Dormont-Mt. Lebanon’s Green team won the NRA National Indoor Smallbore Team Championship with a score of 4,478.

Team captain Dean Trew shot a 1,140 to win the Pennsylvania championship, while Cassidy Fairman shot a 1,135, Tom Benedict a 1,105 and John Funk a 1,098.

Trew supplanted Fairman as the state champion. Fairman, a 2016 graduate of Indiana High School, won that title in 2015 with a 1,139. Fairman did bring home another honor, as her score was good enough to win the women’s national championship.

Trew’s score was seventh overall among men and earned him third place in the Master’s Division.

“I was very surprised,” said Trew. “Cassidy and everyone on the team shot well, and I was fortunate enough to have a good performance on that day. I was just hoping we could break into the top three.”

It was Dormont-Mt. Lebanon’s second national championship. The club won the national conventional 4-position title in 2004 but had never before won the indoor 3-position championship, which is honored with the Chief Army Reserve Trophy.

In winning the title, Dormont-Mt. Lebanon got a little revenge on their local rival, not that Frazier-Simplex had a bad showing.

Frazier’s Gold team finished fourth overall with a 4,444. Former national champion John Husk fired a 1,133 to rank 14th in the nation, while Tom Morley had a 1,119, Sylvia Dreistadt a 1,087 and Zachary Nicolella a 1,105. Nicolella won the individual title in the PSL earlier this year.

The two local teams always push each other.

“When we were shooting, we were more focused on beating our Washington County rivals, Frazier-Simplex, than we were worrying about a national ranking,” Trew admitted. “They’re a really great group of people over there in Wolfdale; they’ve got a phenomenal organization and we love beating them.

“They’re like the New York Yankees of rifle shooting. We might be the Pirates.”

They also became just the fifth team to win the Chief Trophy, which was first awarded in 1997, joining the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, which has won it seven times, the Black Hawks Rifle Club, which has won six, and Palmyra Rifle Team and University of Alaska Fairbanks, which have won three each.

In the Conventional National Indoor Championships, DML Gold finished third with a score of 1,570-108X.

Trew again led the way with a 396-31X, while Ray Harvey (394-29X), Sarah Fink (391-23-X) and Matthew Lovre (389-25X) made up the rest of the team. The Buffalo Sharpshooters won the championship with a 1,578-106X.

Frazier-Simplex Gold was sixth at 1,565-97X. Husk, who was second master class nationally with a 793-63X, led the way in that event with a 393-24X. Morley (392-27X), Nicolella (392-26X) and Dreistadt (388-20X) again made up the Frazier team.

Dormont-Mt. Lebanon’s Silver team finished ninth in the event with a 1,544-92X. Benedict, Miles Ford, Funk and Kevin Dufford made up that team.

In addition to Husk’s second-place finish nationally, Harvey was fifth, Trew seventh and Dreistadt eighth in the master class. Lovre finished second in the sharpshooter class.

Outdoors Editor F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.