James Wilde carved his snowboard through an icy course to third place at the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association’s Midwest regional championships last weekend in Marquette, Mich.

Four competitors race at a time in snowboard cross, one of many events Northwestern’s ski and snowboard club team participated in at Marquette Mountain, said Wilde, the team’s co-captain.

“(Snowboard cross is) more of an obstacle course than a race,” the McCormick junior said. “All of the conditions are pretty crazy. You could go down or someone could fall and take you out.”

Snowboard cross was added as an Olympic sport in 2006. A February New York Times article suggested that it may be the most dangerous Olympic sport.

The men’s snowboarding team finished second overall in the Midwest conference, and the team will advance to the state championships in March, Medill junior Max Gershberg said.

NU’s team competed against other universities, including Marquette University, Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The men’s ski team placed 8th out of 21 teams and the women’s team placed 7th out of 15 teams.

Co-captain Ellen Abrams said the competition was exciting.

“There were quite a few teams there that were really huge and really great,” the McCormick junior said. “It was a pretty intense race.”

Gershberg, a skier, said he was happy with the results of the competition.

“This year’s been a big building year, and we’ve done pretty well,” he said. “It was great to see how well the snowboarders did.”

Team member Bryce Wheaton could not compete in the weekend’s events because the skier was attending the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Vancouver. The Weinberg junior took the last two Winter Quarters off to compete for the Alberta Provincial Mogul team.

“It would have been fun,” he said. “But it was the Olympics.”

In 2008 the team was unknown on campus, Abrams said. She is the only member who has raced since freshman year.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “Every year it’s been different people. It’s a totally different atmosphere, different chemistry. It’s been fun to see it grow.”

Abrams said the team has had to change its organization as more members have joined.

This year, due to transportation limitations, the team had to institute a training team and limit the members who raced on weekends, she said.

“It will only get better,” Abrams said. “It was pretty chaotic dealing with all these new people.”

The team is full of talented freshmen, Gershberg said.

“Building on the success we had this year, next year we should have some great results,” he said.

Though the team draws a wide variety of students with a background in skiing, the time they spend traveling to and from practices and races brings them together, Abrams said.

“(These people) would never normally meet each other,” she said. “The people are awesome because they’re so random and funny and ridiculous.”[email protected]