A competitor grabs his skies as he performs a flip stunt during the Big Air competition. (Photos by Thomas Helms)
First ‘Mountain Mayhem’ draws 350 students to Snowflex for late-night-approved event
9/19/2023 5:27:00 PM | Ski & Snowboard
Share:
A spirited spectator showing livened the atmosphere for Friday night’s Big Air competition at the Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre.
A spirited spectator showing of more than 300 students livened the atmosphere for Friday night's first "Mountain Mayhem" event, a Big Air competition from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday at the Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre. Members of Liberty University's men's and women's ski & snowboard teams competed in the event, which was also open to skiers and riders from other schools such as Virginia Tech and JMU.
"It was a crowd-pleasing event and the crowd was really into it," said Flames and Lady Flames first-year Head Coach Tyler Sherbine, who credited Noah Alston, Snowflex's programming coordinator, for putting the event together. "It was a great turnout, bigger than for a CFAW (College For A Weekend exhibition), and the crowd kind of made the whole event. It was cool. This was the first time to put on an event like this and and it is definitely something we would like to do again." Senior snowboarder Jesse Mast earned 'Best Trick.'
Approximately 25 competitors advanced to the qualifiers and 15 to the finals, which offered superlative awards rather than officially judged scoring. Justin Maier, a sophomore on the Flames' ski team, won the "Best Trick" and "Longest Jump" awards. Jesse Mast, a senior snowboarder, won "Best Trick" for that discipline and Ben Scully, a senior from Hawaii, landed the longest Jump.
Senior skier Coby Liebelt was given the "Fan Favorite" award.
"(Liebelt) was going big and landing really consistently," Sherbine said. "He was just having fun, which was the best part of it, and he was just fun to watch."
Junior snowboarder Emmaus Rich ranked among the most impressive female competitors as she threw some of the biggest tricks and longest jumps.
In addition to cheering on the competitors, students on hand received Snowflex merchandise as well as other prizes through raffle tickets and participated in games as well as tubed down the two Neveplast tracks beside the main slopes.
The Flames and Lady Flames are in the midst of their month-long tryouts and will have limited roster spots this season due to budget constraints after the program took a break from hosting its Next Level Ski & Snowboard Summer Camps this summer.
"We have a couple promising new skiers and about four or five new women's and men's snowboarders," said Sherbine, who must trim the roster to six men's and six women's snowboarders and four men's and three women's skiers by Oct. 2.
