With two talented freshmen shooters on the same team – sharing the same name – -things can get a little confusing. Sarah Scherer and Sarah Beard have played an instrumental role in the rifle team’s success this season, and they’ve also become fast friends.

“We call each other clones,” Beard said. “It’s just fun, it’s interesting with two Sarahs.”

Head coach Karen Monez said the duo has added incredible depth to this year’s team. She also claimed responsibility for Beard’s nickname: Palin, after the former vice presidential candidate.

“One of her favorite hobbies is hunting, so there’s a connection there, and she kind of resembles a young Sarah Palin,” Monez said. “You might call her a little bit more conservative than most. It just kind of stuck.”

Beard, a mathematics major and Army ROTC member from Danville, Ind., said she signs everything as “Palin,” and the nickname is on all of her equipment, too.

Scherer, a movement science major from Fort Worth, said that as the two have gotten to know each other better, they’ve realized they have more in common than their first names.

For both women, an interest in shooting is a family affair. Beard’s father, William Beard, was a member of the U.S. Shooting Team during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Scherer’s brother, Stephen Scherer, was a member of the 2008 Olympic team in air rifle and also attends TCU. Scherer said she was only 9 years old when she started shooting, and she credits her brother for her start.

Representing USA Shooting, the national governing body for the sport of shooting, both Scherer and Beard traveled to Munich, Germany in January to compete in the Bavarian International Airgun Championships.

Scherer competed in the Women’s Air Rifle competition and finished 11th. Beard competed in the Junior Women’s Air Rifle competition and finished 21st.

For Beard, the event was her first international match, and she said it was very exciting. Both her dad and Scherer had competed there before. She said the competition really helped her shooting because she was able to observe world-class shooters in action.

“I’m used to only seeing U.S. shooters, and there was a lot more variety over there,” Beard said. “If I needed to work on a position, I could see what others were doing for that position.”

Scherer will return to Munich in August to represent the U.S. in the 50th International Shooting Sport Federation World Championships. She, along with three of her teammates – including Beard – took part in the Spring Airgun Championships this past month. Scherer was one of six shooters to be named to the World Championship team.

She qualified in third place with 1796.4 points, behind two-time Olympian Emily Caruso and Jamie Beyerle, a 2008 Olympian. Monez said Scherer is the first shooter to accomplish this in her six years of coaching at TCU.

TCU will host the NCAA 2010 Rifle Championships this weekend. This will be the second year in a row that TCU has hosted. With any luck, the two Sarahs have three more years of competing together to look forward to.