Louisiana at Lafayette Wins 2018 Polar Bear Classic

This past weekend, Texas A&M hosted the 43^rd annual Polar Bear tournament at Stevenson’s Ski Ranch in Conroe, Texas to kick off the SCR spring tournament season! Seven schools were in attendance, Texas A&M University, Texas State University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Oklahoma State University, and University of Arkansas. A total of 105 skiers competed at the 2018 Polar Bear Classic, making it one of their biggest events hosted to date!

It was a rather warm Polar Bear, with temperatures during the day making it into the mid-80s. Most everyone arrived at Stevenson’s Ski Ranch on Friday afternoon to set up camp on the beautiful tree-lined lake and then headed to dinner at Fajita Jack’s for a delicious meal.

Saturday morning, skiers unzipped their tents to wake up to a beautiful glassy-calm morning on the lake. The morning kicked off with everyone’s favorite trick event, where University of Louisiana at Monroe took the top spots in men’s and women’s trick events with Aliaksandra Danisheuskaya putting up 3,300 points for the women and Danylo Filchenko leading the way with 4,920 points for the men. Having a little fun to kick off the spring, ULM skier Brandon Schipper can be seen below attempting a two ski flip in the trick event.

A post shared by NCWSA (@thencwsa) on Mar 24, 2018 at 12:42pm PDT

The trick event was followed by slalom all afternoon. In slalom, University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Arron Davies placed first in the men’s event with a score of 5 buoys at 38′ off, and in the women’s event Arron’s teammate Alice Bagnoli topped the event with a score of 2 buoys at 38′ off. Saturday evening, the region headed across the street to Vernon’s BBQ for a traditional Texan meal.

Being able to host a jump event at Polar Bear was a feat within itself, as the Stevenson’s ramp got flipped over and sank to the bottom of the lake during Hurricane Harvey last September

Sunday morning skiing began at 8 AM with the jump event. Being able to host a jump event at Polar Bear was a feat within itself, as the Stevenson’s ramp got flipped over and sank to the bottom of the lake during Hurricane Harvey last September, which wreaked havoc on the state of Texas. Thanks to hard work of the Stevensons, the Texas A&M Ski Team, and some very helpful friends, the ramp was able to be completely rebuilt and back in the water just in time for Polar Bear!

Everyone loved the feel of the new ramp, and we saw some big jumps. Danylo Filchenko of the ULM Warhawks won the men’s event with a leap of 165 feet, and Carlo Basic of Louisiana Lafayette followed closely behind in 2^nd place with a jump of 153 feet.

ULL’s Alice Bagnoli and Conley Pinette took home the top spots in individual event overall, and Monroe and Louisiana split the individual first place spots across the six events. However, the Ragin’ Cajuns of Lafayette packed their skiers into the top five placements in every event taking 19 out of 30 top 5 spots across the six events giving them the title at the 2018 Polar Bear Classic.

Here is how the team standings wrapped up:

1. University of Louisiana at Lafayette
2. University of Louisiana at Monroe
3. Texas A&M University
4. University of Texas at Austin
5. Texas State University
6. University of Arkansas
7. Oklahoma State University

The full results can be found in the scorebook on the USA Water Ski & Wake Sports website.

A good time was had by everyone in attendance at Polar Bear, and the region is looking forward to traveling to Lafayette in two weeks for Fleur de Ski! The South Central Region and Texas A&M Ski Team extends a huge thank-you to the Stevenson family for yet again hosting another great Polar Bear tournament at their beautiful lake.