Junior Shooting Sports alum making national splash
Lauren Phillips, a former Junior Shooting Sports competitor and current intern for USA Shooting, is training at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. (Photo by Clay Lomneth)

Junior Shooting Sports alum making national splash

A familiar face was floating around The American Legion’s 25th annual Junior 3-Position Air Rifle National Championship in Colorado Springs, Colo., last week. It’s a face that those in the competitive shooting community have probably come to know pretty well in the past two years.

Lauren Phillips, who competed in the Legion’s national championship in 2013, currently is a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center – the site of the Legion competition. She’s also an intern for USA Shooting.

Phillips, 20, also shoots for the University of Nebraska and helped the Huskers advance to the NCAA Championships last season. She was an honorable mention all-conference selection and was an Academic All-Big Ten selection.

Phillips, who has been at the training center for six months, will graduate from Nebraska this December and then head to graduate school. A member of the Nebraska ROTC program, she also wants to pursue a commission in the U.S. military.

She said competition in the Legion’s national championships in 2013 was a springboard to where she is now. “After (the Legion competition) I was recruited by Nebraska, and my first year there I made (the) national team,” she said. “Everything kind of happened in a whirlwind. Now I just look back and I’m like, ‘Where did the time go? What happened?’

“I had no idea I would ever end up here. I never anticipated making the U.S. National Team.”

Being a part of this year’s Legion competition was a cool experience for Phillips, who served as the keynote speaker at the awards banquet July 25. “Coming back now, I kind of see myself going full circle with it,” she said. “Now I’m the volunteer trying to help these kids have the same experience, so it’s really amazing.”

Phillips still clearly remembers what her 2013 experience was like in Colorado Springs as part of the Legion’s Junior Shooting Sports program.

“For me, this has always been my favorite (competition),” Phillips said. “I came here not knowing anyone … and I made some of my most life-long friends. And both my parents were in the Navy, so I have a long military family history. Coming here, I kind of saw all the people who have done what I want to do. It was kind of a huge honor to meet them and shoot for them.”