National Champs

After a Cinderella season, the University of Cincinnati water ski team washed away the competition and came away with its first championship title last weekend in Phoenix at the National Collegiate Water Ski Association National Championships.

This is the first team from Ohio to qualify for Nationals in more than 25 years and is the first Ohio team to come away as the Divisional-II champs.

Ten teams competed against Cincinnati including Texas A&M, University of Missouri and the team’s rival, University of Michigan, which was ranked higher than UC coming into the competition.

“It was our goal to make it to nationals, but we didn’t realize that we would ultimately have a shot at winning the D-II Championship,” said head coach Greg Kuenning.

The team had been training for something big for the entire season. The team finished second in their conference and blew the competition away by coming in fourth at the regional competition, according to men’s team captain Brad Ruff. The National Championship was their next big endeavor.

“At the Regional tournament two weeks ago, we were constantly announced as the surprise team from Cincinnati every time one of our skiers was on the water,” said Pat Ewald, president of the Water Ski Team. “And after we had made it to Nationals, we knew that we were going into the tournament as a no-name team that people hadn’t heard of before.”

On Thursday, Oct. 16, the competition kicked off with the first event: jump. Ruff came in sixth place overall with a jump of 100 feet. The men’s and women’s team ended the day in first place, leaving Friday’s slalom event and Saturday’s trick competition open for grabs.

“Everyone’s surprised because we came out of nowhere,” Ruff said at the end of Thursday’s grueling competition.

The boys ended Friday’s slalom competition by finishing in first place again with the help of Ewald, who set a personal best in the event.

The women gave it their all during their slalom competition. According to Kuenning, freshman Kelsey Smith ran a full-pass in the course for the first time all year. The women placed fourth while their rivals from University of Michigan came in second.

Saturday was the trick event and the last chance for the skiing Bearcats to keep turning heads.

“After jump and slalom we had just a 300-point lead over Michigan going into the trick event and we knew that Michigan had a better trick team than us,” Kuenning said.

The women skied their hearts out and beat the women from Michigan, giving the Cats a 400-point lead going into the men’s competition.

Freshman Kacy Clifton set a new record for the university with a run of 890 points, placing herself in fourth place, according to the NCWSA Web site.

“The Michigan men went out just ahead of us in the running order and every one of them stood up their run and put up huge scores that we knew only two of our guys could match if they didn’t fall,” Kuenning said.

Sure enough, the Bearcats retaliated with a valiant effort and the team’s top trick skier, Chris van Treese, scored 1,700 points, placing first and putting the team in third place.

The team’s combined  scores added up to 7,560, allowing the team to take first place and the national title. The team beat Michigan by less than 100 points.

After a mind-blowing year filled with head turning and a little bit of water, Kuenning hopes the team will keep giving it their all for seasons to come.

“Our goal is to continue building a solid program here at UC and continue to make it back to Nationals year after year.”