Every October the nights in Texas get a little colder, as many as 250 students attend the Texas State wakeboarding class, and the TSR event season comes to an end with the TSR Fall Festival. This year is no different as 60 competitors signed up for the annual event. Unfortunately due to the summer drought TSR was unable to host a boat competition, but there was no shortage of impressive riding. This year’s event included a traditional cable competition with six divisions for all levels, as well as a MasterCraft sponsored structure only event that featured a jam style format. This format pits six riders on the cable simultaneously for an eight-minute jam session to utilize structures broken into three different areas. As always the beach was filled with bikinis and fun as TSR turned its facility into the biggest beach party in Texas!
Riders from all over the country began to arrive as early as Wednesday to get some practice time on the cable system. The competitions began Saturday morning with amateur divisions for beginners, intermediate and advanced-level riding. The level of riding has improved so much since last year’s events that the term sandbagger was thrown out often and then taken back after viewing the next division.
All of the divisions saw fantastic riding and many athletes hitting tricks for the first time ever in the competition. After qualifying first in their heat on Saturday, Collin Reed, Sam Scoggins, and Dan Olson all won their final heat as well in beg., int., and adv. respectively. Although it may sound as if these riders walked through the event easily, all but Collin were challenged heavily and needed the best runs of their lives to capture the titles. TSR would like to thank Helium for sponsoring the amateur divisions and providing life vests for all of the amateur riders who earned a spot on the podium.
The pro divisions utilized a format that forced competitors to be good all-around riders to advance through the competition. Scoring was comprised of a possible 20pts on sliders, 20pts for kickers, 30pts for air/flats tricks and 30pts for composition. (The amateur divisions were scored similarly but weighted differently.) The women’s division saw more improvement since Cablestock in May from top to bottom. All five riders rode extremely well and each had the best competition run of their lives. Danielle Coney made her TS 540 and ended up third, Holland Finley displayed her usual all-around skills but added a Raley for her first time ever. The day belonged to Louise Sawyer, who blew away the competition by landing a toeside backside 3, tootsie roll, switch heelside front, and a heelside 3 off the kickers, as well as both regular and switch air tricks (Raleys and rolls), and killed the rails as well. The best part about the women’s division is the support that each rider gave one another throughout the weekend.
The wakeskate division saw some uncharacteristic falls from former Byerly Toe Jam Champions Bret Little and Aaron Reed. They both, however, showed their mastery of the kicker by landing a backside 3, frontside 3’s and frontside 5. Oury Yarbrough applied the pressure with a much different approach, killing the flip tricks in the flat water. Oury made four different flip tricks: kick flip, varial flip, frontside flip and backside flip. Combine that with his array of big spins and ollie norths and Oury scored a perfect 30 in the flat-water portion of his overall score. This was enough for him to take home the championship in pro wakeskate at the 2008 Fall Festival.
The highly anticcipated pro men’s division lived up to the hype. While 2008 Cablestock runner Josh Rice was stuck judging due to an arm injury, The top two U.S. cable wakeboarders: Tom Fooshee (Ranked #1 in the world) and Donald Shelbrick (Ranked #4 in the world) were on hand to compete in the ideal conditions. Donald had an almost flawless run of air tricks which included both regular and switch front to blinds, roll to blinds, blind judges, s-bends to blind and a double s-bend and a mobe. The pressure was put on Tom who came off the dock last and had the benefit of viewing his competitors’ runs. Tom’s versatile run included hits on every structure in the course and a degree of difficulty never seen before in a cable competition. His run included: TSBS7, HSBS7, Pete Rose 5, Front to Blind, Mobe, Switch Mobe, Role to Blind, Transfer 450, Gap BS450 on the kink rail, and last but not least a S-Mobe 5. Tom saved his best trick for last, an S-Mobe 5 which is an S-bend with a 540 degree spin coming out of the trick. Not only did Tom make the trick, but he grabbed it and landed as clean as could be. There is something to be said for the adrenaline and hype that is built around a tournament format and watching the best cable rider in the world land a new trick. Similar to the women’s division, the pro division saw riders encouraging each other on, which was never more evident than when Kyle Reed was encouraged to try a slim chance and made his first one ever. It is the camaraderie that makes TSR what it is, and for that reason this year’s Fall Festival was one of the best events ever hosted at Texas Ski Ranch.
If you have not had a chance to attend or participate in a TSR event, you won’t want to miss Cablestock next spring. TSR would like to thank all of it’s sponsors that made the 2008 event season possible: MasterCraft, Liquid Force, Nike 6.0, Helium, Wakeworld, Wakeboarder.com, CableWakeboard.com, Alliance, Wakeboarding Mag, Red Bull and Wetsounds.
RESULTS:
**Beginner Final Results
** 1 Collin Reed 68
2 Jack Dorrestijn 51
3 Ian Rabon 46
4 Sammy Hess 32
**Intermediate Final Results
** 1 Sam Scoggins 65
2 Collin Haas 63
3 Ethan Manley 59
4 Ben Prizer 51
5 Conner Shepherd 41
6 Cody Johnson 23
**Advanced Final Results
** 1 Dan Olson 71
2 Cody Prizer 69
3 Reed Leible 68
4 Kyle Cameron 62
5 Donald Konomos 60
6 Bryan Wogrin 56
**Women Final Results
** 1 Louise Sawyer 87
2 Holland Finley 66
3 Danileel Coney 42
4 Marisa Umsawasdi 39
**Wakeskate Final Results
** 1 Oury Yarbrough 65
2 Aaron Reed 61
3 Bret Little 61
4 Jesse Landry 43
5 David Roehm 29
6 Zach Roede 27
**Pro Wakeboard Final Results
** 1 Tom Fooshee 93
2 Donald Shelbrick 66
3 Josh Wright 56
4 Cody Johnson 54
5 Blake Vorwald 53
6 Travis Putman 51
7 Kyle Reed 47
8 Evan Washington 38
**Structure Only Final Results
** 1 Tom Fooshee 94.4
2 Evan Washington 72.2
3 Bret Little 66.7
4 Gabe Lucas 55.6
5 Blake Vorwald 33.3
6 Josh Wright 27.8
