Ski & Snowboard Club Vail (SSCV) snowboard riders just concluded a great week of competition at the United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association (USASA) Nationals at Copper Mountain.  “As a coach it was amazing to see this group of athletes come together this season, work there tails off and when it came time to perform put down the best runs of their season at Nationals,” stated SSCV Snowboard Coach Nathan Parks.

Riders from across the nation competed all season long in their local USASA region to earn the right to compete at USASA Nationals, the long awaited season culminating elite championship series.  Twenty-four SSCV snowboarders listed below earned this privilege to compete in USASA Nationals in one or more of the following disciplines-slopestyle (SS), halfpipe (HP), boardercross (SBX), slalom and giant slalom along with the rail jam and banked slalom through their results this season in the extremely competitive USASA Rocky Mountain Series.

SSCV athletes competed in their competitor age group at USASA Nationals.  Results for each individual racer are listed below.  For a complete list of results by competitor age group go to www.usasa.org.

Lyndsey Anderson- HP- 6th

-Banked Slalom-10th

Dylan Baxter- SBX 3rd

Jeremy Baxter- HP- 16th

– SBX- 29th

Bren Blower- HP- 7th

Andrew Breithaupt- SBX 4th

– Banked Slalom-22nd

Jack Coyne- HP- 2nd

– SS- 1st

Barrett Hendrix- HP- 13th

– SS-18th

– SBX-10th

– Banked Slalom-7th

– Giant Slalom-16th

– Rail Jam- 23rd

– Overall- 11th

Devin Hendrix- HP- 11th

– SS- 19th

– SBX- 11th

– Slalom-16th

– Giant Slalom- 9th

– Banked Slalom- 7th

– Rail Jam- 18th

– Overall- 10th

Calvin Hood- HP- 21st

– SBX- 43rd

Ian Kalapos- HP- 17th

Kaleha Kegode- halfpipe-12th

-SBX-8th

Kade Martin- HP- 19th

– SS-38th

– SBX-19th

Ollie Martin- HP- 6th

– SS-3rd

-SBX-5th

Bella Mauro- HP- 24th

– SS- 8th

-SBX- 6th

– Slalom- 17th

-Giant Slalom- 12th

-Overall- 6th

Philip Nasralla- SBX 33rd

Dylan Okurowski- HP- 38th

– SS- 21st

– Rail Jam- 2nd

– Banked Slalom-29th

Tyler Robison- SBX 17th

Sean Roley- SBX 26th

-Slalom 15th

-Giant Slalom 30th

-Banked Slalom-6th

Carter Shonk- HP- 13th

– SS-15th

– Rail Jam- 31st

Cooper Shonk- HP- 20th

– Rail Jam- 17th

Rakai Tait- HP- 1st

Taiaroa Tait- HP- 3rd

– SS- 3rd

– Banked Slalom- 14th

– Rail Jam- 27th

Conor Wherry- HP – 12th

  • SBX-25th

Kaegan Wherry- HP- 23nd

– SS-13th

– SBX-13th

Top 5 Finish Highlights

Among the highlights for SSCV athletes this past week, it was sure fun watching Rakai Tait lay down a halfpipe run that not one person could come within 15 points of with huge amplitude and massive tricks like frontside 720’s and 900’s to give him a near perfect score of 95, all on the heels of hurting his shoulder in a qualifier run earlier that week.  Dylan Baxter stood tall on the podium in 3rd place after an incredible boardercross run.

Dylan Okurowski crushed it at the rail jam under the lights.  After earning a spot to the finals he was able to put down enough solid tricks to get 2nd place in a very heated field of athletes.

Taiaroa Tait and Jack Coyne stomped their first runs in slopestyle putting them in 1st and 3rd place after a huge field of 72 competitors dropped.  Jack’s score of 92 held strong thru the rest of the comp and earned him the 1st place finish!  Taiaroa decided to go out and try to learn a frontside 720 to up his previous run’s score in-between waiting for his turn to take his last drop, landing 2 out of 3 attempts before heading back for his last run where he started with a cab 5 then stomped the new front 7 perfect and finished with a back 7.  It was a huge accomplishment and up’ed his score to a 3rd place podium finish, just shy of 2nd place.  Jack and Taiaroa had a great day in the halfpipe as well, taking 2nd and 3rd respectively.

SSCV Snowboard Coach Chris Laske shared, “As a whole SSCV did great throughout this past week as we watched our riders compete in all six of the events.  We won lots of podium spots and got to see a lot of our athletes achieve their goals, land their runs or get good times in races.  All of the coaches would agree when I say that we are proud of each and every competitor that put the work in to compete at this year’s Nationals.  It was a lot of work and long days with some bumps and bruises along the way but everyone did their best.”

Ollie Martin took 3rd in the Ruggie division for slopestyle at the age of 6.  Andrew Breithaupt had a great boardercross performance taking 4th.

With a young group of development level riders leaving their mark at USASA Nationals along with so many great performances and personal bests from the older riders, along with a the other riders who did not quite make it to USASA Nationals this season but continued to develop throughout the season, it is exciting to see what the future holds for the SSCV Snowboard Team!