During the week of March 4, after a dominant performance at Far-West regionals, the 5C Ski and Board team left their beloved silky west coast powder for the foreboding ice and slush of the late season East Coast to compete in the U.S. Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (UCSA) national championship at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, New York, home of the 1980 Olympics.
Thousands of miles away, 5C Ski and Board made sure Claremont was well represented, taking home bronze medals in women’s team freestyle snowboarding, fourth place in men’s team freeski, fourth place in women’s alpine snowboarding and a historic first-place national championship in women’s freeski.
Will Sedo HM ’26 commented on the uniqueness of this opportunity for the team, noting that many of their opponents are more established programs.
“It’s so cool to be out there and compete against really some incredible athletes there,” Sedo said. “A lot of the teams we were competing against are like Varsity teams that are recruited for by their schools and we’re just a little club team.”
The 5C club ski team started their quest to nationals by dominating on Feb. 9 at the Far-West regionals, which took place at China Peak in Fresno, California where they finished first in the women’s free ski category. Lanie Pidwell PZ ’27 took silver in her regionals debut and three other team members placed in the top ten. Unfortunately, Pidwell crashed during a rail jam, breaking both of her wrists after slipping off of a bar. Nonetheless she persevered, donning two wrist braces like a knight preparing for battle and had a fantastic performance.
The men’s side also held up their end of the bargain at regions and executed well ahead of the upcoming national championship. Men’s giant slalom had great success, going toe-to-toe with the Varsity Stanford team and earning a silver medal, falling by a margin of only 0.23 seconds.
The team’s strong showing in their home state allowed them to qualify a historic 23 athletes for New York’s storied Whiteface mountain.
However, during the week of the championship, on March 6 the mountain’s condition took a hit. Suffering the effects of warmer weather, Whiteface saw a rain day which created a slope constructed of slush. Fortunately, staff of the event improvised to pack the melted snow together with salt and construct a slope possible for skiing.
“We had a rainy day, which was miserable.” Chen said. “For me, I think it was Wednesday, which was my cross race. It rained all day. I finished my races and we were all soaking wet, which was tough.”
Despite the suboptimal weather, 5C ski and board not only persisted, but excelled.
The women of 5C Ski and Board took home first-place in freeski, an explosive discipline that combines rail jam, slope style and ski cross, requiring competitors to earn points across all three categories. The champion freeski team featured three first years — Pidwell, Mea Shelton CM ’27 and Caren Ensing CM ’27 — along with upperclassmen leadership from Mia Rechsteiner PO ’24 and Aimee Johnston PZ ’25.
Not only is it a first for the 5Cs, but this victory also marked the first time a team from the far-west region has won a national title in the women’s freeski competition. Incoming president Cayman Chen CM ’25 commented on her excitement about the win, noting especially that it came from outside of the Alpine sphere.
“They won everything and they won the national title which is crazy because this is our first time that we’ve had a decent amount of pre-skiers,” Chen said. “We’ve been a racing team or an Alpine team, so I think it’s super cool that we have people who are in the park, especially with our freeski women’s team.”
Chen, who competes in freestyle snowboarding, also found success on the national stage, placing third in the individual category and leading freestyle snowboarding to a team bronze.
“The highlight of my competition was my cross race,” Chen said. “I started it not in the best position just because of how I was seeded and then at the start of the race I think I was second and then by the middle I was in third and then I was able to overtake at the very end so I ended up first in my heat. We also didn’t get to do cross during our regular season this year just because of the weather so it was great to finally be able to have that event.”
Rechsteiner, the senior presence grounding the national champion team and one of nine presidents graduating, said she is happy to leave the team in such capable hands.
“I’m so excited for the future of the team,” Rechsteiner said. “We had so many freshmen compete in the regular season and we sent seven to Nationals. They’re all super talented. And so they’re so excited for next year.”
The national champion freeski team will only graduate Rechsteiner and the rest of the team will lose eight senior competitors. However, with a young core and efforts to expand recruitment, Sedo and other leadership are ready to lead the team to another national berth in the 2025 season.
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