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Garrett Mellon (Dayton)
Garrett was new to the ski world this year, and put his team on his back when they needed it most. At Great Lakes Conference, he came out of nowhere and ran a pass for the very first time. He ran his opener, then kept skiing deep into 30-15. He took a break for trick, then on jump day he got his first land, giving his team a chance to get themselves to regionals. Unfortunately for his team, they didn’t make it, but without Garrett’s amazing performance, they wouldn’t have been as close as they were.
Sam Weber (Nebraska)
This past year, Sam won Men’s Overall at Regionals, skied well at Nationals, then skied on Team USA for the Pan-Am games! Nobody else is coming close to Sam when it comes to being a Pro Skier.Jaret and Jake French (OU/Akron)
Jaret and Jake have become the Godfathers of OU and Akron ski. In the offseason and during the week, they both help Akron skiers find time on the water. Pulling skiers as often as they can, teaching them how to slalom and trick, and giving some jump advice when the time comes for it. During tournament weekends, they were at every tournament, helping ferry gear and people to the docks, helping new skiers navigate the intimidating new setting, and helping to grow and continue the Akron/OU/Dayton community that has grown over the past few years.
JJ Mascadri (Miami)
You might know JJ Mascadri as the wakeboarder who 3/4s. This past year, he was Miami’s 5th round jumper, hitting mid-80s consistently, and PBing at 89ft. He fully embodied the cut-later, jump further mentality that is all over collegiate skiing. Most importantly for this award, JJ has two reckless jumping stories. First, at Great Lakes Conference, he sent a jump too hard and snapped his wakeboard on the landing, his team managed to get him a new board in under 3 minutes, and he jumped 89ft on the next one. Second, at Regionals this past year, JJ was genuinely aiming for 100ft, took a cut that was WAY too late, and did hit the side curtain.Every team has someone who is likely to hit the side curtain, but this year I only know of one person who actually did it.
Ben Levine (Ohio State)
I’ve said it many times, Ben Levine is one of the hardest working skiers I have ever met. He is the type of skier to drive from Pittsburgh to Columbus, just to learn how to drive a boat so his team can have more water time. This year, he spent another summer training at Bennett’s, and became a solid all around skier for his team. Ben was able to 3-event at Ohio State, a team notorious for having skiers focus on one, maybe two events. His slalom PB improved to 4@34-15, tricked over 600pts multiple times, and put up good jump scores when his team needed it most. Off the water, Ben is someone who can always be depended on to judge, work on a new rating, or help out with whatever needs done at the lake.Ashley Landis (Bowling Green)
Ashley anchored her team this year and through sheer force of will earned Bowling Green a spot at Regionals. As a skier, she improved to being disappointed if she didn’t run her 32mph pass, became a solid trick skier, and placed in top 5 for each tournament she jumped in. As a leader, she (and a few others) rebuilt Bowling Green’s team from the ground up with incredibly limited practice time. She got three new skiers to land jumps, a few to run passes, and even helped them improve trick scores. I honestly don’t know if any other skier had more of an impact on their team this year than Ashley.Cam Kerns (Miami)
Cam Kerns has grown tremendously both as a skier and as a person since his freshman year. He was a ski baby who had burned out and wasn’t too into skiing competitively, but quickly changed his attitudes towards tournaments after coming to collegiate ski tournaments. Since then, Cam has helped Miami grow and get over the D2 hump, earning spots at D1 Nationals twice (including their highest tournament placement ever!). Under Cam’s leadership, his team has become more social than ever, reaching out and helping other teams and skiers that ask for it. Outside of his direct role as President of his team, Cam also served as the Collegiate Chair in the Ohio Waterski Association. In that position, he spearheaded a project that brought back collegiate clinics to Ohio. He and his committee were able to create an opportunity for over 50 skiers from 7 schools to get coaching they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.Kendall Mottice (Akron)
Kendall came to our team as an already solid trick skier, but took a big leap this fall. She learned how to slalom and managed run her opener every tournament with a PB into 28mph-15, Kendall continued to excel in trick scoring 500 or more points twice, and landed jumps more consistently than ever before! Kendall has become one of Akron’s top skiers, and we are excited to see how she improves this summer!
Joey Gilroy — University of Akron
While I don’t really like nominating myself, I honestly think that my last jumps at GL Conferences are worth talking about for this category. I was my team’s last jumper of the tournament and we needed at least an 85ft jump to secure going to regionals, my PB is 61ft set the week before. Knowing what my team needed, I did what any self-respecting collegiate jumper would do in that situation. I learned how to 3/4 on the dock 2 minutes before it was my turn to jump, I warned the boat crew, my teammates warned the shore, and I sent it. We did not make regionals.
Here’s the video, it’s worth listening to the audio to hear what the shore was like that day: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12ESTgNR-rwBNz8QWfZzeUPOsa1Hsrj_X/view?usp=sharing
Cyrus Bradford — University of Akron
Cyrus was a freshman this year for our team, and he was one of the highlights of the year! He was always happy to help people with equipment, hype them up on the dock, and film skiers while they were on the water. Not to understate Cryus’ impact at the tournaments themselves, but while he volunteered to do everything for the team he did have one condition. At the first tournament he said that he’d be happy to help out as much as he could on the condition that we LET him drive everyone to dinner all season. Cyrus Bradford may be the first skier in the history of the Midwest to make driving their team to and from dinner a reward for doing extra stuff around tournaments, and he was a blast to have around the entire time.
Evan Dolley — University of Dayton
Evan has done some incredible things over the past year as Dayton’s president. Two years ago, Dayton was poised to make a push to regionals. Their best skiers took a “red-shirt” year to save eligibility and take a strong team to Decatur, IL. Covid derailed that plan and could have easily hurt the team long term. Instead, Evan was able to secure new boat use and lake time for his team, and grow his traditionally small team to over 30 members in just one year. Evan’s right combination of fun attitude and competitive mindset has helped Dayton become one of the largest teams in the Midwest and hopefully his example will help his team continue to grow.
University of Akron
I took over as president of the Waterski Team at Akron last spring. Since then we’ve more than doubled the amount of people on our team, filled out a full tournament roster for the first time since the team came back 3 years ago, and came desperately close to making the Regional Tournament losing out by 175 team points. We did it all this past year. We fundraised by working in our community, and hosting fun events off the water and managed to pay for tournaments and practices with zero school support beyond signing off on our eligibility papers, we connected with lake owners in our area to find opportunities for people to learn how to ski, and even converted a few wakeboarders to skiers. Thanks to the hard work of this past year, next season will be the first one in decades where there will be no question about Akron’s ability to field a full roster. I am so proud of what my team accomplished over the past year, and I cannot wait to see how they grow and become a real threat in tournaments in the future.
I’m definitely biased, but Akron has grown exponentially as a team over the past 3 years. 4 years ago,the team was just one skier competing and a couple of friends checking out tournaments for the first time. 3 years ago, the team managed to fill out a men’s slalom team and bring along a few girls. Then covid happened and our team was in danger of collapsing, but instead we exploded onto tournaments!
This past year we filled out full A teams for all three events for both Men and Women, and even had enough numbers to support having B team skiers! On the men’s side by the end of the season we had 6 people running slalom passes, 5 people with full trick runs (on wakeboards), and all five guys landing jumps! For girls we had one returning girl increase her PB to a couple at 32-15, a new girl who we taught to run the course, and some girls who had never skied before slaying mini course buoys! On trick, our almost entirely new team was able to put up 100pt runs consistently, and one new girl had PBs as high as 410pts! For jump, two girls were landing by the end of the season, and another two were “handle popping, gliding slowly into the water” close to landing! Akrons individual skiers were fantastic this season!
As a team, Akron placed really well in our tournaments! We took 4th place at one of our tournaments, and came up just short of making regionals. As a team that is losing one member in the fall, Akron is in great position to keep momentum going and make more of an impact on the tournaments next year!
Tyler Miller (Cincinnati class of 2017ish).
Tyler has been incredibly supportive of Great Lakes teams for years now. During the spring, summer, and fall he pulls and coaches skiers from all across Ohio, and more importantly makes sure they all have a blast whenever they’re in the water. He has also been Instrumental in helping collegiate teams do various Adaptive ski events across Ohio, giving teams an more opportunity to help others and connect with each other outside of the fall season.
In season, Tyler was a huge asset to tournaments in the Great Lakes. In a year where officials were hard to coke by, Tyler helped out driving and judging at every tournament, even taking shifts to drive practice at Van Wert, which notoriously runs until 4am on some weeks.
The University of Akron had an insane growth and improvement over the past year. Last season, they had three members, and two skiers.
Since then, the team has grown to fill out a full, competitive men’s team, and a small (but growing) women’s team.
The men’s slalom team now has 2 skiers at full speed and cutting rope, another running into 34mph, and then another couple getting into 28mph. The trick team needs to score a minimum of 200pts to make A team, and the guys are 5/5 landing solid jumps.
The two girls that they have are also solid skiers with a ton of potential to grow into the sport. With a freshman already running into 28mph and landing jumps.I honestly think that Akron is a full girls team from making regionals in their third year of existence, and a good girls team from nationals.
Bowling Green
The BGSU team took huge strides to improve their team this past offseason. Last year, they qualified for regionals and left with 14th place, this year when they went, they were 10 points from making their first ever trip to Nationals. Sam, Trace, and Ali worked so hard to get their team to improve in a huge way.
Comparing last year to this one, I don’t see a team who has made as drastic of a jump as BGSU.Slalom: 2 people across both the men’s and women’s team were able to run a single pass at regionals last year, this year 7 of their skiers ran multiple passes in the tournament.
Trick: Most members of BG’s team came close to doubling their trick score from last year.
Jump: The Mollets are honestly one of the best beginner jump coaches that I know. They can get almost anybody to land a jump, and it showed throughout this season.
I don’t see another team who has put in the work to grow their current squad into greater skiers the way that Bowling Green has this past year.