Ski Sharks take 2nd as team at state championships

The Shawano Ski Sharks put together a strong showing at the 2021 Wisconsin State Water Ski Show Championships, which were held July 15-18 at Lake Wazeecha in Wisconsin Rapids.

As a team, the Ski Sharks earned a grand total of 1,103.28 points to place second behind Shermalot (1,338.58) in the Division 2 team competition. Several Ski Shark members also competed in individual events, with three earning spots to the national championships.

The team’s strong showing began on July 15, when individual team members competed.

Faith Passehl turned in a second-place finish in the swivel competition, which qualified her for the Division 1 National Championships. Faith McHugh came in ninth in the swivel competition.

The second-place finish was Passehl’s best in her many years competing in swivel, with seventh being her previous best.

“So when they were calling out the placements, they got to like fifth place, fourth place and I was like, ‘Did I not hear my name? Was I not listening?’ Then they got to second and called my name. I was crying, I totally did not expect it. I couldn’t stop smiling all day, I was in amazement. I was so surprised, it felt surreal. The rest of the night, I just did not believe it,” said Passehl, who added that she’s worked nearly every day on swivel this summer.

Brad Keuschel and Kylie Wallace teamed up for a third-place finish in the strap doubles competition, also earning a spot to D1 Nationals. Carsten McHugh and Jessa Jochman placed sixth in doubles action.

The third-place finish was also Keuschel and Wallace’s best at state.

“We had a clean, dry run that I am very proud of,” said Wallace, who otherwise competes for the Webfooters out of Fremont. “We definitely could not have done it without the help of our doubles crew working behind the scenes! We are excited to polish up our routine, make a few tweaks, and make an appearance at the national doubles tournament in just a few weeks. Clean tournament runs make all the early morning practices so worth it.”

“We felt like we had a pretty solid run,” said Keuschel. “We were both about as surprised when we found out we got third because there was a lot of good skiers out there. And we don’t get to watch all the other ones, so you’re kind of going in blind to awards. Our difficulty is not always as high as everybody elses, but we try to make sure our flow and lifts and everything are solid and it looks good on the water. Obviously, the judges liked it this year.”

Cody Siolka came in third in the freestyle jump competition to earn a spot at D1 Nationals. Carsten McHugh came in sixth in the event.

The following day, the Ski Sharks hit the water to compete in the team competition.

The team earned high marks in several aspects of its show, with the pick-up boat crews and tow boat driving earning second-place marks to help the team place second.

“What we really thrive on is just performing — performing obviously for our shows on Wednesday nights here (at Smalley Park) and not necessarily buckling to the pressure of getting in front of the judges and performing for the judges, crowd and the fans. That’s what we do,” said Jaime Anday, the team’s show director this summer.

“Our biggest thing was to try and make sure we got the show under an hour, that was probably the most challenging thing. But we know we can put those acts up on the water and we love performing for our fans at home so we just wanted to have fun and pretend that’s all we were doing (at state). Whatever happens with our scores happens with our scores.”

“We didn’t prepare to the best of our ability for the tournament — we really were very relaxed about it — but it worked,” said Ski Shark President Dave Passehl. “We went there, we skied one heck of a show. We had one bobble at the end where our end pyramid didn’t make it through, but it was still enough for a second-place finish.”

The second-place finish continued a strong stretch of state showings for the Ski Sharks over the past several years.

The Ski Sharks won a Division 3 state title in 2017 before winning a D2 title in 2018. Shawano was then sent to the D1 competition in 2019 where it ran into much larger teams and ended up placing 10th. The 2020 state championship was cancelled because of coronavirus pandemic concerns.

Division 1 Nationals are scheduled to take place August 13-15 in Janesville. Shawano is hosting the D2 National Championships on Aug. 7-8.

More results from the state championships can be found at https://www.facebook.com/wishowchamps/.

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