From Regionals to Nationals with the Ragin' Cajuns

The excitement of the Ragin' Cajuns after a successful Regional Championship

A week ago the ULL waterski team was on their way to San Marcos, Texas for the Regional competition. The outcome of the tournament was excellent, with a very close second to ULM, leaving the team in high spirits to compete at the Nationals in El Centro, California near San Diego. To start with Regionals, our Men’s slalom, trick, and jump team had a good showing with all of their scores, coming second behind Monroe. In slalom we were able to secure the top two spots with Benjamin Stadlbaur first, and Dane Mechler second. Moving onto Men’s trick we are very proud of our own Dylan Schaffer with a repeat score of 6750, making him only 80 points away from the collegiate trick record. Dylan had a very solid first place, followed by the rest of the men, Roberto Linares, Garrett Karber, Christopher Wharton, and Oskar Vikström. Unfortunately there were not great conditions for the Men’s jump, resulting in average scores for the men, but they all did their best, with Christopher Wharton our top jumper, followed by Cole Grant, Oskar Vikström, and Roberto Linares. 

As for the Women’s A Team, the whole tournament was very score in scores, chasing our rival, ULM. Saturday morning of Regionals to Women’s slalom kicked off, with great conditions, looking promising. As it turned out, what looked to be promising definitely was, Taryn Grant and Giannina Bonnemann took the top two spots for the Women’s Slalom event, with Alyssa Chayer in 4th, Brittany Greenwood in 7th, and Charlotte Wharton in 9th, resulting in ULL Women A team slalom to win over ULM. On to tricks we had to fight for our placements, and again the Women did well, with Giannina Bonnemann taking 1st, Charlotte Wharton coming in 3rd, Brittany Greenwood 7th, Taryn Grant 8th, and Madison Schneider 9th, with this result not being in our favor, and coming up short to the ULM Women’s team by only 20 points. Lastly the women had one event left to compete in, jump, and it happened to be a very exciting event, with Taryn Grant jumping a personal best of 150 feet and a 1st finish, then Giannina Bonnemann in 2nd, Brittany Greenwood 3rd, Charlotte Wharton 4th, and Madison Schneider 9th. The great showing of the women in this event winning by 160 points evened out the downfalls of the Men’s scores. The final tally of points in the end were extremely close, only 80 points behind ULM overall. 

Now with only a few days until leaving for California the team is in ultimate training mode, taking advantage of this Fall Break. Tuesday, October 15 the team will travel together and arrive in California, and begin practice on Wednesday. The Collegiate Nationals will begin on Thursday October 17th and finish on Saturday the 19th. There will be numerous teams from each region, Western, Eastern, Midwestern, and lastly the best region-South Central Region. 

Teams competing in Division 1 are: Alabama, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Florida Southern, Grand Valley State, Kansas, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Miami of Ohio, Michigan State, Rollins and Wisconsin. 

Teams competing in Division 2 are: Clemson, Chico State, Iowa State, North Carolina, San Diego State, Texas A&M, Texas, Texas State, UC Davis and Western Washington. 

Now let the games begin! GEAUX RAGIN’ CAJUNS.