It has been two weeks since the Eastern Region saw action, so the teams were ready to get back on the water for some tournament action. On September 16-17, 2017 Clemson University hosted their Clemson Fall tournament in Greenwood, South Carolina and they were joined by the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the University of Georgia, and Lander University!
The tournament kicked off with some amazing slalom skiing with half the men’s A field getting into 32′ off and the top third of women’s A getting into shortline! Clemson University kept their fans updated by featuring quick post-slalom set interviews with each of their skiers on their Instagram Story.
As seen in Clemson’s story posts, their men’s team did very well, but as we said, the competition was fierce and two of University of Alabama men battled for the top spot, both getting into 38′ off. The winner, freshman Benjamin Leutz 
(pictured) skied 2 buoys at 36mph 38′ off, narrowly edging out his teammate Sam Greenwood by 1/2 of a buoy! Payton Phillips of Alabama rounded out the top 3 with 4.5 buoys at 35′ off.
On the women’s side the top two again featured skiers from Alabama with Geneva Roach getting 5.5 buoys at 34 mph 35′ off, followed by Julianna Boskus skiing a score of 2 buoys at 35′ off. Clemson skier Ashley Stevens broke up the Alabama podium party by skiing to third place with a score of 3 buoys at 32′ off, 1 buoy the fourth place Alabama skier!
Moving on to the trick event, Alabama looked to continue its podium dominance, but Bradford Flake from Auburn University had other things in mind. Bradford finished tied for first with Alabama’s Santiago Varas, who was fresh off skiing in the 2017 Open World Championship, and Alabama’s Sam Greenwood rounded out the top 3. On the women’s side Alabama’s women took the top four spots; Julianna Boskus took first with a 2700 point run, followed by Katie Horton (1630), and Mariah Fields (1570)!
Jump Day came as a crowd favorite, huge jumps and big crashes, do you know a better way to spend a day? Once again, Alabama teammates Samuel Greenwood and Santiago Varas were battling it out for the top spot. This time around, Sam bested his teammate by two feet with a leap of 167 feet to secure first, followed by Satiago’s 165ft jump for second, and Alabama’s Quinn Haines completing the podium sweep with a jump of 163 feet. On the women’s side, Alabama was equally as dominant with Mariah Fields (129ft), Julianna Boskus (112ft), and Katie Horton (91ft) completing the women’s jump podium sweep.
With Alabama sweeping the podium in 4 of 6 events and claiming 16 of the 18 top 3 individual event spots, they took home the victory at the 2017 Clemson Fall tournament, followed in second by Clemson, and Auburn rounded out the team top three. Here are the rankings for all five teams that attended:
- University of Alabama
- Clemson University
- Auburn University
- University of Georgia
- Lander University
Check out the full scorebook on USA Water Ski’s website. Feature photo credit, Alabama Water Ski and their 2018 Calendar Fundraiser.
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