Pitt snowboarders qualify for national competition

When Kristen Heintz and her friends first learned of the Pitt Ski and Snowboard Club’s relaunch, the first words out of their mouths were, “We have to do this.”

The team had laid dormant since 2011 until last October, when Katie Epner, a sophomore information sciences major, rebooted the team. The team has exceeded expectations in its first season back after the two-year hiatus. 

Heintz, a sophomore communications major, is one of six snowboarders headed to Lake Placid, N.Y., over spring break to compete in the 36th annual United States Collegiate Ski Association National Championship. Maggie O’Bryan, Aly Shaw, Amanda Orinick, Nick Moores and Michael Guttilla will also be representing Pitt at the event.

Teams qualified for the national championships based on their performance at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships, in which teams in the Allegheny Conference competed against teams in the Southeastern and New Jersey conferences. Pitt’s men’s and women’s ski teams qualified for regionals at Hunter Mountain, N.Y., on Feb. 14 and 15, but did not qualify for nationals. Snowboarders who qualified for and competed at the regional competition automatically advanced to nationals. 

The team placed second overall in the Allegheny Collegiate Ski Conference — which includes Penn State, West Virginia University and Bucknell University, among others — after traveling to five races, one on each of the first five weekends of this spring semester. Of the team’s 30 members, there are 12 snowboarders and 18 skiers.

Epner, the president of the team, jokingly described the team as “a bunch of rookies” and stressed that the Pitt Ski and Snowboard Club focuses on having fun, as opposed to winning. She learned how to ski when she was 3 years old and picked up snowboarding a few years ago. She collects ’80s ski garb that she and her teammates often wear during competitions. 

“We dress up like fools every race. It’s so fun. We don’t take it seriously. We have fun and we still came in second,” she said.

Pitt’s Ski and Snowboard Club was largely funded by allocations from Student Government Board this season, but Epner said that next year, the club’s membership dues will increase. Dues this season were $250 per team member. 

“We got a lot of allocations this year just because they’re kind of sympathetic that I kind of started up this team out of nowhere. We got really lucky with the Board allocating money and I really appreciate that,” she said.

According to Nasreen Harun, Student Government Board Allocations Chairwoman, SGB has allocated $13,172.66 to the team so far this fiscal year. 

The funds were used to cover dues required for participation in the team’s league, competition expenses to advance it to nationals, costs for practicing at Seven Springs and equipment used to tune ski and snowboard equipment.

Harun said the Board allocated these funds to allow the Ski and Snowboard Club to fulfill its mission.

“The Student Activities Fund is generated by students, so we try to help student groups as much as we can. SGB funded the equipment because it could be used for many years to maintain their competition equipment,” she said in an email.

Although Pitt’s team doesn’t have school-branded equipment or official coaches as some others schools do, Heintz said this hasn’t held it back. In fact, the team doesn’t even have formal tryouts and lets anyone join.

Collin Casper, marketing director of the USCSA, said in an e-mail that the most challenging aspect for a team that’s new to nationals will most likely be logistics. 

“I think the most challenging thing for a new team is not having the institutional knowledge of how the competitions work, how registration takes place and the importance of fielding a full team of athletes who have a broad set of skills for both the timed events in snowboarding and also the judged events,” Casper said.

At nationals in Lake Placid, N.Y., snowboarders will compete in slopestyle, giant slalom and an event that Pitt’s team hasn’t competed in before: boardercross. 

In the boardercross event, snowboarders race against each other down a course with banked curves and jumps. In this competition, racers compete against other boarders, as opposed to aiming for the best time.

“I think boardercross will be huge, because we haven’t done it and we haven’t gotten to even practice it because there’s no courses around here. We’re going to be going into that a little blind,” Heintz said.

In slopestyle, snowboarders use different features on a hill such as boxes, rails and jumps to impress judges with challenging tricks.

O’Bryan, one of the six Pitt snowboarders headed to Lake Placid, said slopestyle is her favorite event in which she competes because there are better mountains in the area at which she can practice for the event, while competitors out West have better conditions for racing. 

“It’s just really fun because it’s so progressive. At least at Pitt, it’s a lot easier to advance in that,” O’Bryan, a junior economics and political science major, said. 

Heintz said that giant slalom, a race that requires snowboarders to maneuver around flags and compete against the clock to achieve the fastest time, is her best event. 

At each competition, Epner said that Pitt skiers competed in both slalom and giant slalom. For skiers, giant slalom has gates that are farther apart and the focus is on speed while slalom requires more technical attention because the gates are closer together. 

“You have guards on your poles, your arms, and your shins because you’re hitting those gates really hard to get the least time on the turns,” she said. 

O’Bryan said competing at nationals will be challenging because Pitt’s snowboarders will be up against boarders who grew up on the mountain from schools in the West, such as Colorado University. 

“I think the biggest challenge at nationals will be competing against schools that have a lot more training than we do,” she said.

Casper said that he has never been to Lake Placid, but the winter Olympics have been held there twice before in 1932 and 1980. The USCSA national competition venue alternates between the east and west coasts each year and the selection process begins two or three years before the competition takes place. 

Last year at nationals, at Sun Valley Ski Resort in Idaho, the competition drew about 500 spectators. Casper said the level of attendance fluctuates each year depending on location. 

Heintz said that she and her teammates want to perform well, but they do not have high expectations since they have never been to the competition before. 

“The competition level is going to be a lot higher than we’re used to. We’ve never been before, so we don’t really know what to expect. I think if it’s very competitive, that might put us off a little bit, if people are really serious,” Heintz said.