UGA Fall Festival Fun

Ashley Stevens Events, Results, Southern & Atlantic Coastal Region

This past weekend of September 14th and 25th of 2019 was the second tournament hosted with the Southern & Atlantic Coastal Region. The University of Georgia’s Ski Team hosted the UGA Fall Festival at Southern Waters Lake in Forsyth, GA with a theme of- you guessed it- festival season. With no cell service, until it was time for Mexican on Saturday night, the SAC skiers had a weekend full of festival fun, reconnected with old friends and met the new skiers from each team.

Saturday is a Skiing Day

With an 8:30 am sharp starting time, the Men started off our Festival weekend with some windy slalom sets! While this wasn’t the best skiing of their lives, it definitely was a fun start to the weekend as we saw some ticks without a tock and some flips with a flop over buoys.

The Alabama Men swept the top spots of Men’s A Slalom with a Clemson Tiger clinching a tie in 4th place: 1st- Quinn Haines, 2nd- Ben Leutz, 3rd- Dylan Melnar, 4th tie- Holden Beinhauer, Matt Haertel (CLE) and Brett Stackpole.

Shout out to Thomas Brunner (AUB) for running his first pass ever at a tournament and scoring a 0.5 at 26mph!

A similar result occurred for our ladies as well: 1st- Abbi Grathwohl (ALA), 2nd- Geneva Roach (ALA), 3rd- Lauren Boskus (ALA), 4th- Ashley Stevens (CLE), and 5th- Nellie Roberts (CLE).

As the day progressed, our slalom turned into some slipping and sliding on a trick ski.

The Alabama men and women showed up again! Quinn Haines took first, William Montavon, Dan Greene, and Brett Stackpole took second, third and fourth respectively. James Webber (CLE) followed them up rounding out our top 5. For the women, Abbi Grathwohl took first, Hayleigh Blair (UGA) took second, Lauren Boskus and Katie Horton tied for 3rd, and Bailey Grathwohl took fifth.

Congratulations to Emily Sampson (AUB) who got tricky and earned a new PB of 500 along with Mario Krussig (CLE) who spun into 750. These college skiers are taking full advantage of the new surface turns!

PB&Jumping into Sunday

There was a huge mix up in our jump standings! For our women, Katie Horton (ALA) jumped an impressive 115’ PB on her birthday to take first place. Nellie Roberts (CLE) came in second, Hayleigh Blair (UGA) took third with a 78’ jump, Aura Reyna (AUB) was just 6’ shorter taking fourth, and Ashley Stevens (CLE) took fifth with a new PB of 67’.

Carlos Fidalgo (AUB) booted an impressive 55’, increasing his PB by 15’! Mario Krussig (CLE) also flew far this weekend with a new PB of 66’, however, this was still one foot short of winning the bet between him and Ashley for the weekend. Lauren Linton (CLE) jumped a new PB of 58’. Kate Sullivan (CLE) STOMPED a 53’ moon rocket to Sendyville, USA. Andre Broussard (ALA), as one of the invited officials, sprung into a new PB of 137’ after working all weekend.

Short jumping has become a popular Sunday pastime in the SAC and some of our Regions best jumpers took to a Sunday Festival Challenge. James Webber (CLE) took home the “win” with an impressive 19’ ride over big red, followed by Ben Leutz (ALA) 22’, Quinn Haines (ALA) 27’, and Blake Keller (ALA) 30’. Our record books show that the shortest jump ever recorded in the SAC was 11′ set by Chris Gayton (UGA) and Jacob Lane (NCC) from 2011 at Lymanland.

On the flip side, James Webber (CLE) brought home the W with 132’ PB with Dylan Melnar (ALA) following that up with 122’. Nicholas Kerr (UGA), Colton Steffensen (CLE), and Alec Ancevic (CLE) took home third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

Overall Team Results

The University of Alabama Water Ski Team took home first place with a total of 1910 while the Clemson Water Ski team followed behind in a close second with 1680. The University of Georgia Ski Team took third at 1155, with Auburn University Ski Team and Lander University Ski Team rounding out the team scores. The full scorebook can be found on USA Water Ski & Wake Sport’s website.

THANK YOU!

As always, putting on a tournament is no means a one-person job. This tournament wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if it weren’t for all of our officials and volunteers that came together and pitched in when asked. Thank you to the homeowners of the Southern Waters Community for allowing the University of Georgia Water Ski Team to host at your lake. Thank you to all of our chiefs and invited officials for putting this weekend aside to support the collegiate community. Thank you to all of the skiers who came and those who helped officiate throughout the weekend. We appreciate the time you donate and hope to continue seeing you at tournaments!

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Ashley Stevens

I am Mechanical Engineering student with a Business Minor at Clemson University with an expected graduation date of December 2020. I've been involved with Clemson's Water Ski Team since I entered and have been becoming more involved on the Regional (SAC) and National level.