The club ski and snowboard team has officially qualified for the United States Collegiate Ski/Snowboard Association Nationals following its performance last week at the Mid-Atlantic Regional.
Regionals took place at Blue Mountain in Palmerton, Pennsylvania. Each of Lafayette’s subteams — men’s alpine, women’s alpine, men’s freestyle and women’s freestyle — qualified for nationals, which will take place next week in Lake Placid, New York.
For the alpine teams, the men placed second out of 15 and third out of 14 in the giant slalom and the slalom, respectively, which was good for a combined overall second place out of 14. The women placed eighth out of 15 in giant slalom and seventh out of 15 in slalom, and they tied for a combined sixth out of 15.
While only the top five teams qualified for nationals, one of the qualifying women’s teams from the region was unable to travel there. Lafayette took that team’s place.
According to junior freeskier Benjamin Reohr, the United States Collegiate Ski/Snowboard Association informed the freestyle teams that they would automatically qualify for Nationals as long as they competed in Regionals.
The women’s freeski team placed in second out of 11 while the men’s freeski team placed seventh out of 13. The men’s freestyle snowboarding team placed 12th out of 14, and the women’s freestyle team placed eighth out of 10.
On the men’s side, junior alpine skier Sebastian Bjorkeson finished the giant slalom in fourth place out of 71 with a combined time of 1:59.52. He also placed fourth out of 68 in the slalom, with a combined time of 1:05.82.
On the women’s side, junior club secretary and alpine skier Lindsay Correll paced the women, placing in 15th out of 72 in the giant slalom (2:13.28) and 12th in the slalom out of 72 (1:18.77).
Student Government will be covering some of the team’s trip costs, including $550 in registration fees for each competitor, and will be partially funding housing costs, according to Correll.
“We’ll have dues for gas and food and stuff like that,” Correll said. “But it is a very expensive event. Some other teams from our region weren’t able to go because their school couldn’t give them funding, so we’re very, very appreciative that we could get that because we would not have been able to go otherwise.”
Both Correll and junior alpine skier Liam Cook cited their regular Thursday training sessions at Blue Mountain as being central to the success of the group.
“We got some practice on the same course that we were going to race for regionals, which is really helpful,” Cook said.
This experience also benefited the team’s mentality, which is particularly important in the sport.
“How you perform is based on a 30-second to one-minute-long run, which is kind of crazy,” Correll said. “It’s very mental, so just kind of getting yourself in the gates and getting some practice really helps improve performance on race days.”
The team will be facing opponents from across the country at Nationals, which has its own challenges.
“Our region is basically the worst in the nation, which is great for us because we can qualify to go to Nationals,” Correll said. “Once you get to Nationals, there are kids who’ve been racing at crazy levels of competition since they were 10 or 12, which is insane.”
Cook emphasized the importance of “having fun” amidst serious competition.
“Honestly, we just want to ski,” Cook said. “Our team is very focused on enjoying each other’s company and having fun with each other. It’s always kind of nice to get together and do something that everybody enjoys.”
The team qualified for nationals in Mammoth, California last year, but whiteout conditions forced several event cancellations.
The competition starts on Tuesday.
