San Diego State Holds Off Arizona State to Claim Western Regionals Crown!

The West Coast had a busy weekend at Bell Acqua Lake 1 in Rio Linda, CA where UC Davis and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo co-hosted the 2018 Western Regionals. All 12 teams traveled from near and far to represent their school in hopes of qualifying for the 2018 National Championships in San Marcos, Texas. The teams included Arizona State University, Bakersfield College, California State University, Chico, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Sacramento State University, San Diego State University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Davis, University of San Diego, University of Nevada, Reno, University of Colorado, Boulder, and Western Washington University. With over 140 athletes competing, you could say the West (best) Coast unofficially held the largest “onesie” themed sleepover of all time.

Saturday morning came far too quickly for most people with the first skier taking to the water at 7:50am, around 5 hours after “bedtime” and a little under 90 minutes after registration “started”. With nothing better than bagels and muffins to soak up Friday night’s fun, men’s slalom began with quite a few tiebreakers, and tons of family members lining the lake. Curtis Williams of SDSU is finally back from New Zealand and doing a lot more than just announcing! He took 3rd place with 2.5 buoys at 35′ off, just barely ahead of the 3-way tie between Arizona State’s Jackson Baines, Cal Poly’s Hayden Brake, and Western Washington’s Christian Forsee. Arizona State took their first of many podiums this weekend as freshman Gage Jarvis from Alaska skied into 2nd place with 3 buoys at 35′ off. The only male to ski into 38′ off is sophomore Colin Minard from Cal Poly with a score of 2 buoys! Following men’s slalom, Arizona State was in the lead for team results, giving them a bit of relief heading into women’s slalom.

Women’s slalom was more of a battle between ASU and SDSU, but thank goodness UCLA’s freshman Paula Jaramillo from Colombia took the win by just shy of a full pass with 3 buoys at 35′ off followed by Jana Grubbs just barely missing her 32 off pass at 5.5 buoys. It must be nice to ski so close to her home soil just two lakes over! Shout out to Bell Acqua Lake 3 for their generosity this weekend! Anneli Holm from Vail, Colorado rounds out the podium for 3rd place following her teammate and best friend Jana with 3 buoys at 32 off! Teammates Natalie Gaharan and Kari McCollum from SDSU tie for 4th place followed by SDSU’s freshman, Allison Gurnett putting San Diego State into the lead for team results.

Fun fact, the top three placements for women’s slalom were all freshman!

Trick was off to a late start as to be expected with the amount of skiers. Curtis Williams from SDSU redeemed himself, taking the win by over 500 points over Alec Vaio of ASU. Ben Leeds, also known as “little Ben” to majority of the western region, skied to 3rd place just ahead of, Alec’s big brother, Ty Vaio (Cal Poly) on the men’s podium! 

Out-tricking every single boy on the water OTHER than Curtis, Paula does it again and takes the win for UCLA with less than 100 points over ASU’s Jana Grubbs. For the first time in a long while (ever??), University of San Diego is back on the podium with Freshman Ashley Meara, an AWSA skier all the way from Missouri! PSA, props to Natalie Gaharan, one of the best trick skiers in the women’s competition for falling on her first trick and still getting out of the water with a smile! Saturday was a long day to say the least! With the sun setting around 7pm, B team was finishing up, dinner was being served, and onesie’s were being worn in full force. Host team, UC Davis, cooked 16 lbs of spaghetti thanks to the Vaio’s kitchen!

Sunday funday was off to a bit of a different start than normal with the ramp lowered to 4.5 feet rather than the normal 5 foot ramp settings. Women’s jump was not the normal “women’s crash” today with many first time lands! 

After bumping the ramp back up to 5 feet, barely missing that 100 mark, Kari McCollum set the pace and took 1st place with 98 feet ahead of hometown hero Jana Grubs at 89 feet! Making her second podium appearance was Ashley Meara, University of San Diego, taking 3rd place with 86 feet, 10 feet ahead of 4th place Mackenzie Bachmeier from WWU.

Only 7 boys who beat the women’s jump event winner Kari McCollum.

Finally people actually woke up and rolled out of their tents just in time for men’s jump! Just to point out, there were only 7 boys who beat the women’s winner Kari McCollum starting off with Grant Cox of WWU jumping into 7th place at 99 feet behind Cal Poly president, Miles Lussi! Not to mention, Miles jumped into 6th place with a 9 foot personal best landing a 108 foot jump with absolutely no water ski jumping experience prior to college. The Vaio brothers jumped into 4th and 5th place with Ty grabbing 4th over Alec by 3 feet at 114. Jackson Baines of ASU took 3rd place with a leap of 118 feet, and a big gap between him and the top two. Measuring all the way down to the meters, SDSU’s Curtis Williams just narrowly missed first place by 1/10th of a meter to Hayden Brake of Cal Poly at 129 feet. Special shout out to Hayden for a gnarly out the back ragdoll of a crash, but in true college jumper form he got back on the horse immediately to soar his was to his 129ft jump!

The moment everyone’s been waiting for, the team results! Who will be heading to Nationals on October 11th-13th at the River Ranch in San Marcos Texas? (Drum roll) This year’s Western Region champions are San Diego State University (7095 points), representing the region at nationals in Division 1 alongside runner up Arizona State University (6,710 points)! Joining the two top teams, will be 3rd place Western Washington University (6,335 points), 4th place Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (5,965 points), and 5th place UCLA (4,050 points) barely squeezing into 5th over Cal State, Chico. You may view the full scorebook on the USA Water Ski & Wake Sports website.

Awesome job to everyone and every team on the west coast this weekend for being so amazing and helpful. Thank you to our drivers, judges, scorers, and officials for making this weekend a success! A huge thank you to our host, Bell Acqua Lake 1 and the Todd family for sharing their home with the best coast. Can’t wait to see our water ski family in just two weeks at Nationals!