AWSA WATER SKI

Awards Committee

January, 2007

AWSA Awards

Athlete of Yr Male - Freddy Krueger:  Undefeated in 2006 at major events

Athlete of Yr Female - Mandy Nightingale:  World Cup Tricks Champion, World Record Holder, highest American Score at Pan Ams, U.S. Open Tricks Champion, MVP of Pan Ams

Slalom - Terry Winter: #1 on USA ranking list and won his first pro event this year.

Tricks - Mandy Nightingale:  World Cup Tricks Champion, World Record Holder, highest American Score at Pan Ams, U.S. Open Tricks Champion, Masters = ?

Jumper - Freddy Krueger:  Undefeated in 2006 at major events

Overall - Jimmy Siemers: #1 on USA ranking list.

Rising Superstar
Tyler Scott - Tyler Scott won the Boys 2 national slalom title and set a pending national record of 2 buoys at 39-1/2 feet off at the 64th annual GOODE Water Ski National Championships, presented by Speedo, Aug. 14-19, at Ski West Village near Bakersfield, Calif. Scott, who owns the current national record of 1 buoy at 39-1/2 feet off, won the national title by nearly two passes. Earlier in the month, he set two other pending national records at 1-1/2 at 39-1/2 off and 2 at 39-1/2 in Boys 2 slalom. In a year’s time, Scott has increased his personal best from 3-1/2 buoys at 38 feet off to 2 at 39-1/2 off.

Team of the Year

Pan Am Elite - Granted it is not unusual that we win, but this was one of our most challenging tasks. Unlike at Worlds where the Canadians do not concentrate on the team title but rather on total medals by sending a strong contingent of independents, at the Pan Ams, where there are no independents, Canada sent its best team; and here they were very strong.
The U.S. however lost Regina two weeks before the event because of school commitments that she could not escape much as she tried. She was replaced by Danyelle who was already skiing for the U21 which meant that she would be doing double duty, skiing an exhausting 12 times in four days under immense pressure. Also, Jimmy was coming off of a hard fall only six days earlier at the U.S. Open which prevented him from jumping in the Open jump finals. Freddy was suffering aches and pains after a summer of dominance in jump and did not trick or slalom for fear of injury. Finally, Brandi's knee gave out (she will have surgery soon again) at the beginning of her second tricks pass as the surgery had not apparently "taken". So we had our work cut out for us. We were in fact behind by 187 pts. in team overall after the slalom finals with only the tricks and jump finals remaining, and we had already almost maxed out in the latter. However, in the eleven Finals events our skiers participated in, they upped their scores an amazing nine times with Danyelle tying her first round slalom score. Only Freddy did not improve his score taking only one jump as he had already won the event with that one jump and could not have helped our team score anyway. Yet, in jumping, we actually managed to improve by scoring over 2992 out of 3000, since Freddy scored a 1000 and Danyelle, who won jump, was only .2 meters ahead of second place Mandy. Mandy was voted Elite team MVP by the skiers because she improved so much in all three events (700 tricks pts., 2 jump meters and five slalom buoys) from the prelims to the finals.
And remember all this was accomplished without familiarization"

VOLUNTEER of the YEAR:

Gaile Heieck will be working her 8th consecutive position as Officials Assignments Coordinator for our Nationals, the number only being broken by her one year as a Chief Judge.