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2018-19 US moguls team named with 7 of 17 skiers from Ski & Snowboard Club Vail

Tess Johnson, 17, is a senior at Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy an is also a captain on the high school's soccer team. In 2018-19, she will enjoy her first year as a member of the U.S. Ski Team's moguls A team, the top tier of the program.
Steven Earl | Special to the Daily

MOGULS

A Team

Men

Casey Andringa (Boulder, Colo.; Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 10/6/95)

Bradley Wilson (Butte, Mont.; Wasatch Freestyle; 6/5/92)

Women

Olivia Giaccio (Redding, Conn..; Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club; 8/15/00)

Tess Johnson (Edwards, Colo.; Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 6/19/00)

Jaelin Kauf (Alta, Wyo.; Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club; 9/26/96)

Keaton McCargo (Telluride, Colo.; Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club; 10/7/95)

Morgan Schild (Pittsford, N.Y.; Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 8/25/97)

B Team

Men

Jesse Andringa (Boulder, Colo.; Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 12/15/97)

Hunter Bailey (Vail, Colo; Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 3/24/96)

Joel Hedrick (Fort Collins, Colo.; Winter Park Competition Center; 5/30/97)

Jack Kariotis (Tiburon, Calif.; Team Park City United; 1/17/97)

Thomas Rowley (Long Beach, N.Y.; Hunter Mountain Freestyle Team; 7/2/94)

Emerson Smith (Frisco, Colo.; Ski & Snowboard Club Vail; 2/13/97)

Dylan Walczyk (Rochester, N.Y.; Ski and Snowboard Club Vail; 6/25/93)

Women

Nessa Dziemian (East Hampstead, N.H.; Park City Freestyle Ski Team; 4/14/94)

Hannah Soar (Somers, Conn.; Killington Mountain School; 6/4/99)

Avital Shimko (Manhattan, N.Y.; Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club; 4/24/96)

VAIL — The U.S. Ski Team announced its 2018-19 mogul team nominees on Monday, May 21, and seven of the 17 skiers are Ski & Snowboard Club Vail alumni.

Vail native Tess Johnson will enjoy her first year as a member of the squad’s A team, the top tier of the program, as will Ski & Snowboard Club Vail skier Casey Andringa. New York transplant Morgan Schild also secured her spot on the A team, despite the fact that her season had to be cut short due to injury.

On the B team, Casey Andringa’s brother Jesse will enjoy his first year as a member of the U.S. squad, joining his teammates Hunter Bailey, Emerson Smith and Dylan Walczyk.



The news came as no surprise to Ski & Snowboard Club Vail, who honored coaches John Dowling and Riley Campbell last week for their ability to graduate club athletes onto the U.S. Team.

Campbell received the Ski & Snowboard Club Vail’s highest honor for a coach, the The George Rau Coach of the Year award, as club executive director Kirk Dwyer commended Campbell on maintaining his rigorous schedule in 2017-18.

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“(Campbell) ran an expanded FIS team which included his regular NorAm group and five U.S. Ski Team skiers,” Dwyer said. “That meant that Riley was going to cover our SSCV training projects, plus the U.S. Ski Team projects, so that we could support all of our athletes.”

BUMPING ALL across THE GLOBE

Dwyer said the training schedule was intense, with 30 days of ramp training in June and July, another 30-plus days on snow in Mount Hood, Oregon, followed by a five-week training camp in Australia and a two-week training camp in Switzerland. And that was all before the season officially began; Campbell and his athletes were back in Vail by November for pre-season training on Golden Peak.

“In season, the schedule became even more complex, as Riley followed both the World Cup and NorAm tours and juggled the training for both groups of athletes,” Dwyer said.

Season highlights included Johnson winning her first-ever World Cup event, securing her spot on the A team, Schild hitting the World Cup podium on back-to-back days in Deer Valley, Utah, in January, and Casey Andringa’s journey from non-U.S. team competitor to top U.S. finisher at the Olympics in fifth place. Walczyk won the North America Cup overall title, and Jesse Andringa won the final North America Cup event of the season, securing their spots on the B team.

Casey Andringa was also named the International Ski Federation’s World Cup Rookie of the Year.

“In addition to the schedule of domestic and international World Cups, the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team will compete on home soil this winter at the 2019 FIS Freestyle, Snowboard and Freeski World Championships Feb. 1-10 in Park City, Utah,” the U.S. Ski Team wrote in a press release issued Monday. “Athletes accepting their nominations to U.S. Ski Team receive a high level of world-class program support, along with access to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Center of Excellence, and numerous athletic benefits including elite coaching staff, sport science, sports medicine and high performance staff, and education opportunities.”


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