Two young ladies with super fast feet, Paige Everson (left) and her competitor went tooth-and-nail in this competition. Everson finished 5th out of 16 rollers in the U-13 age group.
Competing in her first professional tournament of the year, Jessica Berg-Collman won two professional log rolling matches and lost two at the Namekagon River Roll-Off tournament held in Hayward, Wisconsin at the Lumberjack Bowl on Sunday, July 20. Her coach and log rolling mentor Jenny Atkinson won 3 matches and placed just outside of the money in a stacked field of women rollers.
Namekagon serves as a prelude to the upcoming Lumberjack World Championships that are held July 23-27 at the same venue. This year’s competition turned out to be the largest single-day log rolling contest in the world, with 117 athletes of all ages vying in 212 birling matches.
Athletes came from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado and Nova Scotia to compete.
Berg-Collman also competed in the boom running competition, but because of falls she was well back of the top three women who all recorded times as fast or faster than the men’s winner. Berg-Collman placed 4th at worlds last year in boom running in the Women’s division.
Dominick Wilson looks confident as he works to get his competitor to take a plunge into the Namekagon River. He was successful!
Atkinson, a 3-time boom running world champion, is suffering from an injured ankle and didn’t want to risk aggravation because of the upcoming world championships.
Taylor and Paige Everson each placed in the top six in deep fields of amateur rollers. Taylor rolls in the U-7 bracket while Paige rolls in the U-13 division. A few years ago most of the kids rolling in the U-7 division were cute but had few skills. Today, the skill level exhibited by these youngsters is nothing short of amazing. There were 22 kids in the U-7 bracket and 16 log rollers in the U-13 bracket.
With so many kids in Paige’s division the competition was fierce. It seemed like Paige rolled in matches all day, winning most but not quite making the podium.
Robin Henrikson rolled well in the U-13 division, but once again had the bad luck of being grouped with a stacked bunch of experienced competitors and she couldn’t push through into the semi-finals. A great young roller, Henrikson has had the bad luck of the draw in her tournaments. With a little bit more tournament experience Henrikson will move up quickly.
Above: Log rolling coach and mentor Jenny Atkinson (right) won 3 matches and placed just outside of the money in a stacked field of women rollers at the Namekagon River Roll-Off. Right: Jessica Berg-Collman (right) did well in her first professional log rolling tournament of the year. Berg-Collman won two matches and lost two matches in the Namekagon River Roll-Off held in Hayward, Wisconsin on Sunday, July 20.
Dominick Wilson won 4 out of 7 matches and he too was just outside of the top three placers in the U-13 division. Wilson was the U-10 world champion last year but he is now the youngest in his age bracket this year. With any luck Wilson has an outside chance of medaling at Worlds this year.
Rolling spikes for the first time, Wellesley Howard-Larsen finished 5th in the U-17 semi-pro division. By far the youngest competitor in the field, (the oldest roller was 19) Howard-Larsen had a lot of great matches.
Because there weren’t enough boys in the boy’s U-17 division Connor Birdsong from the Lacrosse, Wisconsin team competed against the young women and placed third overall. And for Birdsong, a strong, skilled roller, it was all he could do to place third among the talented women athletes.
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