Eng, White to compete in ski regionals race this weekend

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Ski and
snowboard team president Kristin Cusic leads her
heat around the first gate of the boardercross course at Mammoth
Mountain easily.

By Gilbert Quiñonez
Daily Bruin Contributor

UCLA women’s ski team members Laura Eng and Lisa White
qualified for this weekend’s regionals at Lake Tahoe,
finishing 3rd and 5th, respectively in last weekend’s
competition.

Kate Hartzell was the team’s top snowboarder with a 10th
place finish.

Snowboarder Atif Noori finished eighth and Jason Siegel finished
14th on the men’s team.

UCLA averages 334 days of sunshine a year. The ski and snowboard
team, however, is still the biggest club sport on campus with 85
members who make the five-hour drive to Mammoth Mountain every time
they compete.

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Veteran team
member Atif Noori, left, tries to edge out his
competition in the quarterfinals of men’s boardercross.
“It’s an adrenaline rush like no other,”
snowboarder Eric Elorriaga said. “You’re going down the
mountain racing with friends around you, knowing you can fall and
break every bone in the body.”

There are four main events ““ giant slalom, slalom, border
cross and skier cross.

The team competes in the Southern California Collegiate
Snowports Conference, which includes skiers and snowboarders from
USC, UC San Diego, San Diego State, Cal Poly Pomona, UC Santa
Barbara, Peperdine, Long Beach State and powerhouse Cal Poly San
Luis Obispo.