Boarder soars to success

MAT-SU -- Two years ago, Desi Diselrod grabbed a snowboard and entered her first competition at Alyeska, basically on a whim. Now in her third season, she has to find a bigger trophy case, as she has become one of Alaska's premier snowboarders.

Diselrod, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Teeland Middle School, has dominated competition in Alaska, and she has made quite a splash at the national competitions as well.

Not bad for a girl who has raced only two seasons.

"We were at a ski swap and my mom saw a snowboard and she asked if I wanted to try it, and I said, 'Yeah,'" Diselrod said. "At Alyeska that winter they had a competition and I thought I'd try it. I did good, and it kept going from there."

Diselrod competes in such events as the halfpipe, slopestyle, giant slalom, slalom and boardercross. In some freestyle events, you can find Diselrod sliding down rails, catching air and putting her talents to the limit in hair-raising tricks.

"I like pretty much all the events," Diselrod said. "I do them all, and I like them about the same."

Diselrod, who is coached by Ray Plummer, has started working with Leon Reynolds of Denali Gymnastics to incorporate some aerial tricks. She spends quite a bit of time on her board, in many different places.

"We go to 'Aly' [Alyeska] pretty much every weekend," Diselrod said. "We go to Hatcher Pass and I also practice in my back yard on rails."

In her first year of competition, Diselrod qualified for the national championships in Mammoth, Calif., where she placed eighth in her age group.

Last year, her second in competition, Diselrod came into her own on the slopes and firmly established herself as one of the top young Alaskan snowboarders. In local competitions and qualifiers for the national championships, Diselrod won eight out of a possible 10 events, taking home gold medal after gold medal. In the two events she didn't win, she took second and third place. That led up to the U.S.A. Snowboard Association National Championships in Sunday River, Maine.

There, she took third place in boardercross, fourth place in slopestyle and was fourth in the "triple overall" results, which take into consideration scores in alpine, freestyle and boardercross events.

This year, the national championships are scheduled for late March in New Mexico. Diselrod and other boarders must qualify by finishing in the top two in local competitions to be guaranteed a spot. On Jan. 3, Diselrod won the gold medal in the giant slalom event, qualifying her for a spot in that event.

When Diselrod isn't catching big air on a snowboard, she is playing other sports. She plays basketball, volleyball and runs cross-country, and excels at all of them.

"Sports are fun," she said. "I like them all."