Published: April 12, 2016
A natural
Slinger sophomore among nation’s best in 1st season
Daily News
Slinger’s Lexi Bullis always had the thought of competitive
snowboarding. Instead, skiing and soccer always took precedent.
Snowboarding was a recreational activity, something to do on the side.
But when she spotted an unused snowboard in her stepdad’s garage about
four years ago, her desire to snowboard competitively was rekindled.
Several times Bullis asked if she could try it.
Each time her stepdad said no, but with a condition.
“He wanted to be there to teach me,” Bullis said.
When Slinger announced snowboarding was added to its list of winter
sports offerings, Bullis saw it as the opportunity she was waiting for.
“Snowboard comes around and it makes the two of us get into it,” Bullis said.
Six months later, she is one of the best snowboarders in the country
after she finishing fourth in the young women 14-15 division in giant
slalom at the 27th annual USASA Snowboard National Championship at
Copper Mountain Resort in Copper Mountain, Colorado, about 75 miles west
of Denver.
She was also 15th in slalom.
The national meet capped a jaw-dropping season for the Slinger sophomore.
This season was the first year snowboarding was offered at Slinger.
The conference the Owls competed in — the Milwaukee Metro High School
Snowboard Conference — just finished its second year. It’s so new, it
doesn’t have a website.
“I wanted to have fun with a bunch of friends,” Bullis said. “I had no
goals, no expectations. I had no idea how it was going to go.”
Snowboarding was supposed to be her “fun” sport.
Her curiosity to try competitive snowboarding started during the times
she was on the slopes with her park board — used strictly for
recreation — saying she’d try to go through the ski gates.
“It was a lot of fun,” Lexi said.
In the Owls’ first meet of the season Jan. 2 at Tyrol Basin in Mount Horeb, Bullis led a 1-2-3 finish.
She was the conference champion on giant slalom and boardercross and
led the team to a conference championship in its first season.
On top of that, she was also a state qualifier in skiing for Slinger.
The Owls took 12th in conference and qualified for state. She was
honorable mention All-Conference.
This was all in her first year of
racing on a snowboard. Her coach and her dad, Paul Bullis, was
impressed. It was hard to not be.
“(It’s) very difficult,” Paul said about Lexi qualifying for state in
skiing and snowboarding. “It’s hard to master one of the sports. To
master two is difficult, exemplary. I don’t know the exact word.”
Lexi started skiing when she was 2 years old. She started snowboarding when she was 4.
She’s also a goalkeeper for Slinger’s varsity soccer team.
“She’s got very good athletic talent,” Paul said.
It may be the genes. Lexi’s mom is an avid skier, while Paul is an avid snowboarder.
“I’ve been juggling snowboarding and skiing most of my life,” Lexi said.
When she was in sixth grade, her neighbor coached a club ski team and
that’s how she got into club ski racing. She stopped that before her
freshman year at Slinger and joined the Owls’ ski team.
“She’s very natural for (skiing),” Paul said. “But she had to learn
how to ski competitively. Slalom and giant slalom takes a lot of skill
and takes years to master.”
“She caught on to skiing very quickly,” he added. “Snowboarding took a
little while to catch on. But after a couple of years she was
comfortable with both.”
While the principle is the same for competitive skiing and
snowboarding — get down the hill as fast as possible — how that’s done
varies drastically.
“In
skiing, you have to worry about one ski versus the other and not put
too much pressure on a ski or you’ll fall,” Lexi said. “In snowboard,
you have to put pressure on the edge and you have to drive power through
edge of board.”
There was another challenge for Lexi with snowboarding: The board she had was a park board.
That board sitting in her stepdad’s garage had been in his possession
for quite some time. Some of the components on it are from 1996, older
than Lexi by more than three years.
So when they hit the slopes for the first time at Little Switzerland
in Slinger, Lexi found out how drastic the difference is between a park
board and a racer’s board.
“Let’s just say I fell a lot in the beginning,” she said.
One of the key characteristics between a park board and a racer board
is foot placement. A park board typically consists of soft boots and
the feet are perpendicular.
That’s not true with racer board.
The boots are hard, similar to ski boots, and the feet are turned toward the front of the board at about a 65-degree angle.
“You don’t want to be sideways, you want to face straight down the hill,” Lexi said.
It took some time to get used to.
“It was really, really hard,” she said. “I was not used to how the board responded.
“On the first day (of the season), it can be rough even if you’ve done it for years and years.”
As for the racing aspect, skiers aim to go through the gates.
Snowboarders have to be able to flick their legs around the gates, while
leaning over them with their her upper body.
“You have to be in good aerobic condition with very quick
reflexes,” Paul said. “In order to be successful in snowboard and
skiing, you have to have a good understanding on how to read the hill.
“It takes years to master excellent skiing and excellent snowboarding.”
She had to work out some old habits. When she did, she showcased what she could do and put together a memorable season.
“It was a lot of fun,” Lexi said. “I was pretty excited to tell people I qualified in two sports on the same weekend.”
Lexi’s personality, according to Paul, helped her get out to a solid start on a snowboard.
“You have to be very competitive and have no fear,” he said.
Reach sports editor Nicholas Dettmann at ndettmann@conleynet.com.
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