UC Waterski Club - UC Wins D-II Nationals

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UC Wins D-II Nationals

In their first ever trip to collegiate nationals, the University of Cincinnati won the Division II Championship! Consistent skiing seems to have been the advantage for UC all season long and they were able to cap off their best season ever with a D-II win in Phoenix, AZ. UC is the first team from the midwest to ever win the D-II Championship.

UC got off to a strong start on Thursday taking 1st place in both Men's Jump & Women's Jump and finished the day with a 100 point lead over Texas State the defending D-II champions. Brad Ruff of UC finished 6th in Men's Jump with a Greg Hudepohl jump of 100 feet and Amanda Thress took fifth place in Women's Jump with a new UC women's record of 54 feet. Teammates Nicole Richter & Jacklyn Woniger followed closely behind in 6th & 7th place each jumping 51 feet.

Men's Slalom was first off the dock on Friday morning and again UC took 1st place with the help of a 5th place finish from Pat Ewald who ran .5 buoy @ 32 off 36 mph and 3 other guys ran into 15 off 36 mph. The women took 4th in slalom and at the end of the day on Friday, UC was still in 1st place over Michigan by 325 points.

Trick is UC's weakest event and Michigan's best event, so they knew that they still had a lot of work ahead of them. The final day of competition started with women's trick and the UC women all skied to their potentially and actually held of the Michigan trickers beating them by 85 points and taking 3rd as a Justin Ady team. Freshman Kacy Clifton was the anchor of the women's trick team with a score of 890 points and taking home a medal for a 4th place finish. This left just one event to go with a 410 point lead over 2nd place Michigan. UC knew at this point that the tournament was theirs to lose and that if everyone skied well they would win. The round was re-seeded so UC was last off the dock with Michigan one spot in front of them. The Michigan men stepped up to the challenge in a big way knowing that everything was on their shoulders. Every men's tricker for Michigan stood up their run and had four guys trick over 800 points! UC only has two guys capable of tricking over 800 points so they knew it was going to be close. UC's 2nd round skier went down early and their 3rd round skier had over almost 200 points cut from his run by the judges so it appeared that Michigan was in fact skiing their way back into the competition. A solid 740 point trick pass by Dan Soules of UC left them in a good position going into the final round. The only skier left was UC's top tricker Chris Van Nicole Richter Treese who had been nursing a bad knee injury all week and wasn't sure if he could even do his first trick, a Wake 5 Line! Needless to say, the team erupted when Chris not only stuck his Wake 5 Line but proceeded through his entire pass for a total of 1,700 points and a 1st place finish in Men's Trick. The Michigan men had gained 320 points but that wasn't quite enough to overtake UC who ended up winning with a 90 point margin overall.