Iowa State Edges UW La Crosse at the First Jacob Kaufmann Memorial Classic

Marquette University, our gracious hosts of the weekend!

The weather could not have been better. The sun was shinning and Wisconsin’s state bird, the mosquito, was biting. There was sunscreen and bug spray being passed around everywhere. It was a relatively small tournament, but it was an interesting change of pace from what we were used to. It was something different for Great Plains teams, as we don’t really know what it is like to camp offsite, but that didn’t stop us from having fun! There were parents with food as far as the eye could see. At one point, there may have been more parents and spectators than actual collegiate skiers…

Evan Marcus from UWLAX swerving into 28 off

Now, on to the skiing!

The men were lucky enough to get all of their skiing done on Saturday and they kicked off the tournament with Men’s Slalom. Hunter Duffy (LAX) won with an impressive (collegiate) PB of 4 buoys at 35 off.

The next event to hit the water was trick. They ran Men’s and Women’s trick simultaneously. I haven’t seen so many great flip attempts in ages. The closest attempt, in my opinion, was made by UW Madison freshman, Reid Miller. Ryan Schipper (IWS) ended up winning Men’s trick with 890 points and Cynthia Prentice (MAD) won Women’s trick with a solid score of 580 points.

The next event was Men’s jump, which never feels quite right taking place on Saturday. Hunter Duffy and Ryan Schipper tied with 109 feet, but when it came down to meters, Duffy skied away with the W.

Erin Vespestad turnin and burnin for Iowa State

Women’s Slalom was next on the water and was split up between Saturday night and Sunday morning. The Great Plains Slalom Queen, Erin Vespestad (IWS), took first with 1 buoy at 28 off. She also had one of the best slalom crashes of the weekend! After slalom, we finished up the tournament with Women’s Jump. Amber Aho (IWS) ~sent it~ and rode away with a 68 foot jump to put her in first.

Hope LaMonica from University of Iowa took first overall for women and Hunter Duffy from UW La Crosse took first overall for men. As always, we saw some great skiing, a lot of PBs, and we saw the competition intensify!

Adam Rexorade ~jumping around~ for UW Madison

Iowa State University was able to take first this weekend and leave the Wisconsin schools in the dust. UW La Crosse took second, UW Madison took third, Marquette University took fourth, and UW Stout came in fifth.

As a Wisconsin girl, it was awesome to finally have a tournament close to home that my family and friends could come watch. Huge shout out to Marquette University, Mike Testa, and the homeowners of Stillwater for the great tournament and all the hard work!

For the full scorebook from the tournament, click here!

Photo credit for photos: Marquette University & Noah Lazzara, University of Wisconsin – Madison