NYSEF Freeride at Junior National Freestyle Championships

2015 NYSEF Junior National Freestyle Championship Team in Park City, UT

View of the Slopestyle course from the start

Brett DeWeese & Emma Lauria

Taylor Bond(NWS '15)(left), Jake Prichard (2nd to right), & Brian Gardiner (right)

The Freeride team, accompanied by Head Coach Justin Perry and Moguls Coach Nick Arnold headed to Park City, Utah last week to compete in the 2015 USSA Junior National Freestyle Championships.

Winter-term athletes Brett DeWeese and Emma Lauria qualified for the Moguls competition in their first year in the "A" division. Though they didn't make it into the top 20 that went to finals, the girls had a great experience skiing with the top junior skiers in the nation and Coach Nick was proud of their performance.  2016 is another year and we know they'll be working hard to get back there.

On the men's side, Coach JP had three athletes qualify through Eastern Freestyle competition: Taylor Bond (NWS '15), Brian Gardiner, and Jake Prichard.  All three competed in Slopestyle while Brian also qualified for Big Air.  

In Slopestyle, Brian won his qualifying heat and Jake took 4th in his to qualify into the 16-man finals.  Taylor just missed out and ended up 21st out of 79 athletes.  Both boys put down great runs in finals, and finished solidly in the top ten: Jake took 6th overall and 3rd in his age group while Brian took 8th overall and 4th in his age group.

In Big Air action the following day, Brian stomped a double cork 1260 mute on his first run to land him in 4th overall and 2nd in his age group.  Unfortunately, he fell hard on his 2nd attempt while trying for the same trick with a tail grab and couldn't better his first run score. Regardless, the performances overall were stellar and left room for improvement, which says a lot about the potential for reaching the podium in the future.

For Brett and Emma, championship season is over, however for the Slopestyle crew, they'll be traveling to USASA Nationals at Copper Mt, CO. April 4th-7th with their sights set on one more championship opportunity.  Go get 'em boys!


Click the link for a great article on Brett DeWeese in the Saratogian