South Central Goes Hog Wild In Arkansas

The South Central Region teams headed to Bullneck Lake in Scott, Arkansas this past weekend for the first ever Hog Wild hosted by the University of Arkansas Water Ski team. We were pleased to be joined this weekend by skiers from The University of Missouri, who had missed the cutoff for Midwest Regionals but did not want the ski season to end!

We kicked off the morning on Saturday with Women’s A Slalom followed by Men’s A Slalom. Bailey Austin from ULL took the top Women’s Slalom spot with 2 at 38 off, and her teammate Ryan Canepa secured the top Men’s Slalom spot with 6 at 38 off.

If you’ve ever been to Bullneck Lake you know that there is a lot of space to play! As we headed into B Team Slalom and Trick, those not skiing spent their time playing volleyball on the sand volleyball court, walking the slack-line, and relaxing on the man-made beach.

As the trick event wrapped up two University of Louisiana at Monroe skiers found themselves atop the leaderboard with Danylo Filchenko taking the men’s title with 5,060 points and Hanna Straltsova winning the women’s event with 4,050 points. With the combined scores to rank teams for the trick event, ULL came out in first, followed by ULM and Texas A&M University.

Although multiple teams were short on skiers this weekend, there was no shortage of team spirit at Hog Wild. Every skier off the dock had a host of teammates cheering for them, and everyone was decked out in their school colors showing off their #NCWSAspirit from sunrise to sunset. Men’s B Trick finished up on Sunday morning, followed by jump. The jump event saw similar faces atop the leaderboard with Danylo Filchenko flying 182 feet for ULM and Hanna Straltsova of ULM leaping 155 feet.

With the jump concluded, our amazing time in Arkansas was finished. On behalf of the South Central Region we would like to extend a big thank you to the Greenwood family for letting us use their property for all of our skiing needs. Congratulations to every skier who competed this weekend. See you very soon for Regionals this weekend in Katy, Texas!