National Champions!

The National Collegiate Waterski Associations hosts the national championships every year for the best 12 university teams. Today marks a week ago that the ULM Warhawks won the title! 

It has been an incredible experience to participate in the national championship alongside such a strong and supportive team. This is the competition that all team members had been working towards since day 1 of the semester. I have worked hard on improving in all my events in order to be as valuable as possible for the team. I was for sure going to ski in tricks, but jump was added to that when one of my team mates got injured in the first competition of the season. This also left 1 spot on the slalom team to be filled, but in order to earn that spot, I would have to prove myself. I didn't count on having to slalom at nationals for a long time, so I focussed my training on tricks and jump. In trick I was working on a new run to be able to place as high as possible by the time nationals came. It was going very well and I practiced this run at regionals. This worked out great and after the extra practice sets in between regionals and nationals I was confident in my new run. Jump was also going great. Even though I wasn't able to measure my practice jumps, I could feel that I was going farther than before. 

Just a couple of days before nationals I was sure to fill the last spot on the slalom team. This meant that I would be the first of our team to ski at nationals. On Thursday morning at 7, the event started and I was up around 8. The sun was on the course, which made it hart to see the buoys going one way. However, I had practiced in these conditions, so I wasn't going to let that affect me. I ran 14, which I was struggling to do throughout this entire season. I'm stoked to have done it under this much pressure and finishing with 1.5 at 13. 
Jump was my next event and I was feeling good about it, because I had jumped at the tournament site a couple of times before. My first jump didn't feel far, but it felt stable. I couldn't see the number the boat judge was signing to me, so I just looked at the directions that were being given to me from the shore. I tried to have a better cut and be better on the ramp and this time, I knew I had a good score. Again I couldn't make out the score, but I did know it wasn't the 100 feet (30 meters) I wanted, because I only got 2 signs. On my last jump I tried to go later and harder, because I just wanted to break that 100 foot barrier. I had a great cut, but lost it all when I hit the ramp. On the landing I hurt my shoulder a bit, so I got back to the shore disappointed  The team was not having that, because apparently I jumped a PB, so I wasn't allowed to be disappointed. My farthest jump was 96 feet (29.10 meters), so I'm definitely happy with that.

On the last day, again early in the morning, I was up for tricks. I had done my run countless times, so I just had to do the same thing as always. I had even been skiing early in the morning back at school, so there shouldn't be a problem. When I was up on the water though, the nerves still got the best of me and I went down on my first trick. Lucky enough, I turned so slowly that the first 180 degrees of my planned 540 degree turn still counted as a trick. This got me 100 point total, and some team points! Not a great end, but I did great in jump and slalom and I'm happy to be skiing collegiate tournaments in order to handle the competition stress better and better.

At the end of the day, collegiate waterskiing is not an individual sport anymore. I skied my 3 times, but I got to go through the nerves and adrenaline another 27 times, when my team mates skied. It is amazing to experience waterskiing as such a team event. To have a whole group of people be there to cheer you on and unite every time one of us skis. The atmosphere and support that I experienced this tournament was amazing, and to come away with a national title, even better.