At first glance, it was easy to see what drew Calista Smoyer to West Virginia.

The Mountaineers own a record 19 NCAA team rifle titles, including five of the last six, and have a combined 26 individual titles between smallbore and air rifle competition.

“West Virginia has a really good rifle program,” said Smoyer, “so I’m really excited to be going there, and help their team do good at NCAAs.”

That much is clear.

But her connection to the program runs deeper than any stat or record, something that was obvious at Northern Lehigh’s National Letter of Intent signing ceremony on Wednesday.

“Their coach is a lot like my coach, and he has the same coaching style,” said Smoyer. “And their campus is really nice, and just the major, and everything. And it’s kind of close to home.”

For Smoyer, West Virginia was the perfect fit.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Tom Fister, Smoyer’s coach on the Ontelaunee Rod and Gun Club team. “She had several, I want to say top schools, that were interested in her, and when she got the offer from West Virginia, and accepted … she’s going to one of the top schools in the nation. So it’s really cool. It’s really neat.”

Smoyer chose West Virginia over the likes of the University of Memphis and the Naval Academy.

Fister has watched Smoyer carve her own path to success.

“She’s always had a lot of talent, and it’s just a matter of keeping her focused, which she’s been doing an excellent job of on her own,” said Fister. “She’s been doing very good in air rifle and smallbore.

“I think she’s doing really good in both. Sometimes you’ll have athletes that are that way. But I think she’s well-rounded, and when I say well-rounded, I mean (scoring high) in both of them.”

Smoyer came to the sport simply enough.

“My grandpa, he’s an outdoor type of person, so he used to take me back to the club to shoot a .22 gun, and he noticed that I was pretty good at it,” she recalled. “So I just went and shot for their team.”

Smoyer has flourished working with Fister over the past four years.

“Our training program, we meet two nights a week, and she might be getting an hour-and-a-half each night, at most,” he said. “So going to this next level, going to college, she’s going to have a lot more training time. So the skills that she does have, they’re going to be able to take them another step farther.

“I absolutely see her making the NCAA Championships. With the team she’s going to be joining, I’m sure the team will continue to make it every year. But I would have no doubt she would make it as an individual if she would have chosen another college, where maybe their team wouldn’t have made it. I have no doubt about that.”

Fister has already started to bring in concepts that will help Smoyer at West Virginia.

“I’ll be seeing her every week,” Fister said of Smoyer. “We have matches, basically weekly. And I’m in contact with her new coach (Jon Hammond), so if there’s anything he wants us to work on, then we’re going to try to incorporate it.

“The one thing she pointed out, he seems to be on the same type of coaching methods like what she’s used to with our team. So that’s kind of neat. It’ll be an easy transition.”

Smoyer, who will major in Exercise Physiology, is ready to write the next chapter in her career at one of the most storied institutions in the nation.

“It’s definitely going to be challenging, but I think with the help of my coach at West Virginia, that I’ll get up to their level,” she said. “I’m just really excited to be going. It’s kind of nerve-racking, but it’s exciting.”