posted Jul 26th, 2007 - The 2007 season has been the toughest in many years for the Midwest Skydiving League as well as its teams. The weather in the Midwest has not been very friendly to skydivers, with plenty of windy and cloudy weekends. But fortunately, this past weekend brought three days of absolutely perfect jumping weather. The turnout for Meet 3 was still a bit light by recent MWSL standards, but the overall skill level was probably the highest ever.

Five teams were at Chicagoland Skydiving Saturday morning, four of whom would be competing in their first MWSL meet of 2007. As an extra bonus for the teams, the Midwest Skydiving League and Chicagoland Skydiving combined to bring Airspeed's Todd Hawkins to town to provide expert coaching.

The AAA Class offered the first head-to-head competition of two of the MWSL's most highly skilled teams: the SDC Furies and CSC Rhythm. The Furies have been around since the 2003 season, but experienced a significant roster change during the off-season, including their first male full-time player (Gosia Cienkosz - Outside Center, Sarah Lawrence - Inside Center, Karyn Rees - Point, Greg Rick - Tail).

Mixing genders clearly did not hurt the Furies any as they put up a strong 10.3 average despite a fairly slow draw. That score would have easily won most previous MWSL meets in the AAA Class. However, this time they were up against the highly dedicated and talented Rhythm team (JaNette Lefkowitz, Steve Lefkowitz, Laurent Beaudouin, Robert Chromy, Andy Metcalfe on camera) from Chicagoland Skydiving.

Rhythm put together an MWSL AAA Class record with a 12.8 average. Ever the overachievers, Rhythm actually completed the four "extra" meet rounds on Saturday as well. A rematch between these two high scoring teams is already less than three weeks away.

In the AA Class, we had a matchup of another long time MWSL veteran, Just4Fun, against a team making its competitive debut, CSC False Religion. Just4Fun had a solid meet despite needing to pick up an alternate after round one due to an equipment issue with one of their regulars.

The highly experienced jumpers from Sky Knights finished with a 7.2 average. False Religion (Valerie Long, Andy Boyd, Paul Desruisseaux, Alan Butt, Kevin Naftzger on camera) also had a solid meet and took advantage of the all-random round three to put what turned out to be an insurmountable lead into place. False Religion scored a 15-pointer to J4F's 11 points in that round and finished with an 8.2 average.

False Religion's performance was assisted by being fortunate enough to have Todd Hawkins available to coach them the day before the meet. The 15-pointer in round three also secured False Religion the "PD Challenge" prize for the meet, as they more than doubled their average from rounds one and two. They received their choice of PD t-shirts or PD Factory Team DVDs courtesy of Isaiah McCauliffe and Performance Designs.

The fifth team at the meet, SDC On the Fly (Sara Miller, Betsy Smith, Kim Allen, alternate Butch Connelly and Pete Jabczynski on camera), would not have any local Rookie Class competition at this meet. Also making their 2007 debut, On the Fly showed a great deal of potential despite missing one of their regulars. The benefits from the team's tunnel training were clear, with a 7-pointer in round one and a 4.7 average the meet, which at the time of this writing put them at the top of the NSL Rookie Class leaderboard.

Once again Chicagoland Skydiving did an excellent job running an MWSL meet. While accomodating five teams is nothing unusual for them, the manifesting was considerably less routine than in past meets, and it took a great deal of coordination by the staff. Special thanks to Lisa Dexter for handling that and to DZO Doug Smith both for hosting the meet and arranging to have Todd Hawkins available the entire three-day weekend. Todd did an outstanding job both coaching and organizing while also serving unexpectedly as meet judge. It was great to have him back, and we look forward to seeing him again next season.

Meet 3 probably exhibited the most talented collection of 4-way skydivers in our 9-year history this past weekend. Meet 4, a 10-round event, is on August 11th and 12th at Skydive Chicago, this year's USPA Nationals host. We are all looking forward to another opportunity for everyone to demonstrate the fruits of their hard training; that weekend will no doubt be here before we know it.

Meet report by Alan Butt