Inspired by her older brother, Monika Jozic, senior, followed in his footsteps by joining the snowboarding team as a freshman. Since then, Jozic has competed in slope style, bank slalom, and border cross competitions, where she placed fourth in bank slalom as a sophomore , and won state with the rest of the womans team as a junior. 

“[My favorite memory] was when we won state,” Jozic said. “We weren’t expecting to win at all. So when we won, we kind of all looked at each other and we were like, ‘wait, what the heck?’ and we all stood up to get on stage. That was a big moment.”

To get to this point, Jozic spent time practicing those events and slowly building up her skill.

“[I’m] riding every time at practice, rather than just sitting around doing nothing, constantly being out there with the coaches and trying to get runs in,” Jozic said.

Throughout her career, Jozic has faced several injury concerns.

“I have a back injury that affects my [sacroiliac] joint, which stops me from being able to move around completely, but I’ve been able to get over that through riding and physical therapy,” Jozic said. “It wasn’t a season ending injury, but it was definitely [a] ‘I should be more careful when I’m trying things.’ I did physical therapy for about two months, and then after that, I started going to the gym more to just keep my body strong, rather than just letting it get worse.”

Both the teams start off the season by practicing on dry land, where they slowly transition into practicing on the snow once it comes in. After some of these practices, the teams do bonding activities.

“We had a team spaghetti dinner after one of our dry land practices,” Jozic said. “I wasn’t there because I work, but I heard it was really fun.”

After this year, Jozic plans to go to Oregon State University. Despite the school not having a direct snowboarding team, Jozic plans to continue by doing it leisurely. For now, she has two goals in mind.

“[The] goal is to win state again, and I’m hoping to get first for bank slalom this year,” Jozic said.

Snowboarding since he was 10 years old, Henry Lukesh, senior, competes in slope style and half pipe.

“Slope style is like your organized run of jumps and rails put into one,” Lukesh said. “Then half pipe is [a] run through a little course [with] two pipes.”

When Lukesh was a kid, he was inspired to try snowboarding for the first time.

“I saw some stuff on TV, and I thought ‘might as well see if I can do that,’ because it didn’t seem too difficult at the time,” Lukesh said. “I just kind of got attached [after that].”

Lukesh kept practicing on his own before joining the high school team, but didn’t hit his stride until he began snowboarding for the high school.

“Once I got into our high school snowboard team, I started to progress pretty quickly,” Lukesh said. “I spent a lot of time at the mountain, causing me to reach higher levels decently [quickly].”

As Lukesh has progressed in snowboarding, he has started putting more work in and treating it more like a sport.

“I didn’t start truly working on muscles to try and keep up with how I snowboard [at first],” Lukesh said. “But now I’m working on the more athletic side of it, treating it like a true sport, and it’s changed my mindset towards all of it. It’s caused me to actually be a little bit more prepared to do bigger stuff.”

Other than snowboarding, there are other parts to the team that Lukesh loves doing.

“I love driving up to the mountain,” Lukesh said. “It’s one of my favorite things, other than driving back because I’m so tired.”

Lukesh considers his biggest accomplishment in his snowboarding career to be landing a double backflip.

“When I first did [it], it destroyed my brain thinking about just even trying it,” Lukesh said. “But when I went for it, it kind of just opened up my mind to a new side of snowboarding.”

Originally starting the sport against the defiance of her mom, Emery Jackson, senior, has been snowboarding for three years. 

“I started [snowboarding] because I really liked it growing up,” Jackson said. “I liked watching it, and my dad snowboarded, but my mom didn’t want me to because she didn’t want me getting hurt. Then I took a lesson during spring break, and I really liked it.”

Jackson has been on varsity since she was a freshman, and is now versed in various tricks and skills. 

“I’ve improved a lot,” Jackson said. “I remember the first couple of times I went up—it was rough. But now I’m able to do 360s and board slides. I’m trying to do rails now, [too], which is cool.”

Snowboarding competitions are composed of four events: slopestyle, halfpipe, boardercross, and bank slalom. Jackson competes in all four, but has a couple of favorites amongst them. 

“Slope style is my favorite, because last weekend we had a competition and I got first place, which was really exciting because I’ve never gotten first,” Jackson said. “Half pipe is also my favorite because in my first year on the snowboard team, I got first place, which was really cool.”

Getting injured in snowboarding is a common occurrence and can set back athletes mentally and physically. During state last season, Jackson got a minor injury on her elbow during practice.

“[The journey has been] kind of steady,” Jackson said. “I feel like for a while it felt as if I was just stuck, and there were definitely some mental battles.”

Snowboarders find days during the week to go to the mountain to practice and compete together at competitions on certain weekends. Jackson has specific goals she wants to reach during these competitions.

“My goals are to try and get first in the slope style competition that we have coming up,” Jackson said. “I want to try and get faster, get my scores up higher, and try to do more 360s to level up my tricks that I do on the boxes and tubes.”

While snowboarding is a popular sport independently, Jackson encourages students from the student body to join the team and try something new. 

“I wish people would know that [snowboarding] is not actually that hard,” Jackson said. “It just takes commitment, and if you’re willing to fall a couple of times, then eventually you will get it.”

What started as family trips up to the mountain quickly became something much more for Sienna Anderson, senior. Introduced to snowboarding by her dad, Anderson found a passion that continues to this day.

“My dad really liked it. He snowboarded with his friends in college, and he would take my brother and I up when we were little, and it was a fun way for us to bond,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of me and my dad’s bonding thing that we have.” 

Now leading the team as a captain, Anderson has learned new things beyond technique, things she wishes more people understood about the sport.

“I wish that [people] knew that it was super relaxed and everyone’s getting better,” Anderson said. “I mean, when I was a freshman, I wasn’t very good, and I feel like joining the team and having people there to tell me what I can do better has really gotten me to where I am.”

As team captain, Anderson continues to encourage the team to come together and support one another to create unity within the team.

“We were encouraged to go to the top of each event that we were doing and cheer people on before they go,” Anderson said. “Being there for the team and cheering each other on [and] being nice and loud.”

That supportive atmosphere helped lead the womens team to win state last year, a moment Anderson considers an achievement to be proud of.

“I would say the girls team winning state last year was a really big deal. I was really proud of our team,” Anderson said.“ I want us to win state this season. I think that our girls’ team is really strong. We’ve only had one competition so far, but our girls’ team took the top four spots in the last competition we had.”

Along with snowboarding, Anderson has played other sports that help her compare snowboarding to other competitive sports and their environments.

“I played competitive softball my whole life, and I would say [snowboarding is] so much more chill,” Anderson said.

With big goals and achievements in mind for the season, Anderson focuses on not only leading the team but also building personal connections.

“I want to do that again this year, just encourage people to get to know each other on the team and ride together,” Anderson said. “I think that’s really important.”

At the encouragement of his brother, Chris McCoy, senior, started snowboarding at 10 years old. He found improvement after furthering his involvement and participation in the sport. 

“I wasn’t good at all, and then it was just something I did for fun,” McCoy said. “But when I joined the snowboard team, I started seeing progression and that’s when I really started to improve.”

Because of McCoy’s history in skateboarding, he has prior experience that can relate to one of the four snowboarding events.  

“I compete in all four of them, slopestyle is my favorite, but I’m probably best at halfpipe,” McCoy said. “[Slopestyle is my favorite] because it’s the most versatile and fun. I like to skate, and it’s similar with the rails and jumps. Just skating for multiple years definitely got me comfortable on board, which made snowboarding easy.”

McCoy has faced multiple severe injuries throughout his career, and has gone through an intense recovery process. 

“I broke my elbow last year and spine this year,” McCoy said. “The healing time took a long time. I had around four months of just physical therapy and then I was able to get back into riding.”

Looking back on his career, McCoy has one specific accomplishment that stuck out to him more than the others. 

“I would say winning state for half pipe [was important]. That was a big accomplishment last year,” McCoy said. “I practiced everyday, and in the offseason I skate a lot in the halfpipe so that’s probably where I get good at that.”

At the end of each season, the top snowboarders in the region compete in the state tournament for one week.

“State last year was really fun,” McCoy said. “Staying up at the government camp in a hotel was really great because we were up at the mountain during school and got to snowboard with our friends.”

Though snowboarding is rooted in individualism, McCoy believes it’s a positive aspect of the sport.

“It’s an individual sport compared to other sports at the school which are team sports,” McCoy said. “So it’s kind of nice to be able to kind of rely on yourself and not on just a team. It’s also nice to be able to go up around the mountains, which is just a beautiful place.”