AVSC Freestyle Skiers Shine at Divisional Championships
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| by Alan Cole |
February 23, 2009
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AVSC freestyle pipe and park skiers posted multiple top-ten finishes this past weekend, February 14-16 at the Rocky Divisional Championship Aerials, Slopestyle and Halfpipe competitions at Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk. Skiers from Vail, Steamboat, Summit and Telluride were all vying for spots at this year's Junior Olympics at the final qualifying event of the season.
Six AVSC athletes had top-ten finishes in both of Saturday's aerials competitions. 14 year-old Alex Ferreira stomped two jumps, a 720 tail grab and a flat-spin 360 Japan grab for third place in the first competition. Walter Wood took sixth with a corked 720 tail grabn and a switch corked 540 tail grab. Mikey Schumacher wasn't about to let the older skiers hog the spotlight. The 12 year-old finished seventh with a textbook "Screamin' Seaman." Schumacher was joined in the top-ten by teammates Carson Leydecker (eighth), Caine Albrecht-Hildebrand (ninth) and Glenwood Springs' skier and new AVSC athlete Blake Lockard (tenth).
The AVSC team opted to stick with their first competition jump choices in the afternoon as well. Wood moved up to fourth place, Schumacher jumped to fifth overall and Alex Ferreira finished seventh. Rounding out the top-ten for the Club were Albrecht-Hildebrand in eighth, Leydecker in ninth and Lockard in tenth.
Whitney Wickes cruised past her slopestyle rivals on Sunday to easily qualify for Junior Olympics, winning the competition by 17 points over second place finisher Katie Turner from Team Summit. "She had confidence going in and threw some big 360 jumps with grabs. No one else was even close to her amplitude," said AVSC Freestyle Program Director Eric "Doughboy" Knight. Simone Augspurger also carried the torch for the AVSC women with a sixth place in Slopestyle and a third place in Monday's Halfipipe competition. "Simone had some consistent, solid skiing and stood up all her runs."
Torin-Yater Wallace and Travis Van Domelen also brought out their best stuff and finished in a tie for second place. "Torin put some pressure on himself with a sub-par first run but delivered when it mattered," said AVSC Pipe and Park coach Geoff "Stumpa" Stump. "He did nice work on the upper rails and wrapped it all up with a switch 1080 that was one of the day's best." Van Domelen's run showcased a backflip off the butter box feature, a big rodeo, nice rails with switch ups and a huge 900 grab that he tweaked and held until the last minute. Both AVSC skiers scored 84 points even, just off the winning score by three-tenths of a point.
Kelly Selby's second run featured a loop off the butter box, a big grab rodeo jump and a "bow and arrow" double grab jump and scored an 81, just off the podium in fifth place. Teammates Alex Ferreira and David Van Atta also cracked the top-ten in eighth and ninth place respectively. "It was a difficult slopestyle course, and our athletes performed brilliantly," said Stump. "Everything came up quickly and there wasn't much time between hits to get set and launch."
AVSC skiers saved their best for last at Monday's Halfpipe event. The home town team attacked the cold, fast pipe and took the top five spots in the morning and followed up by taking the top three spots in the afternoon. Taylor Seaton led the way with a morning victory and Walter Wood stepped up to claim first place in the afternoon. "We dominated," said Stump. "Taylor skied like a champion and built on his X-Games and Aspen Snowmass Open experience. Walter had a fantastic 1260 in the afternoon where he slowed the final rotation and flowed beautifully into a perfect landing." Both skiers had huge amplitude and stomped landings all the way. Jack Sullan's style impressed the judges. "He had a beautiful 540 high mute grab and followed with a mixture of natural and unnatural spins and grabs," said Stump. His execution score of 9.2 from one judge bumped him to second and third place on the day. Wood was third in the morning and Seaton finished second in the afternoon.
AVSC skiers who have been competing locally showed they can keep the pace with some of their more experienced teammates. David Van Atta finished fourth in the morning only six-tenths of a point off the podium. Torin Yater-Wallace finished fifth overall twice. "I'm stoked because our home guys are competing at a really high level and closing the gap with our travel team athletes," remarked Stump. Another example of this was Alex Ferreira took 14th and 17th on the day.
"Most 12 year-olds can barely get out of the pipe but not Mikey Schumacher," said Stump. "I could barely recognize him out there with the amount of amplitude he was getting." Schumacher's air helped him take 18th place twice out of 26 skiers.
David Van Atta won this year's sportsmanship award at the Divisional Championships. "Dave always keeps a positive attitude no matter how he performs and makes everything fun for those around him," said Knight. "He's totally deserving of this award."
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For details, contact
Alan Cole
AVSC
(970) 205-5104
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