posted Jul 22nd, 2009 - The July meet of the Midwest Skydiving League 2009 season was definitely a case of quality over quantity. A lousy, but accurate, forecast kept participation at the year's first meet at Chicagoland Skydiving down.

In fact, a trend of unjumpable weather has plagued the Midwest all season. However, four teams, including AAA Class top team SDC Rhythm XP, came out to see if they could get some jumps in anyway.

In the end, each team was able to complete three rounds before the blue sky between the clouds also turned into more clouds. Each team still got the most out of the limited air time. SDC Rhythm XP posted a strong 19 in Round 1 and an impressive 18.3 average after the three rounds.

Rookie Class team SDC Flying Fish (Anthony Dommer, James Lovaas, Jeff Carpenter, Jesse Townsend, with Chris Goller on camera) scored a team highscore of 10 points in Round 2 and finished with as many points after three rounds (17) as they had after six rounds at the MWSL June meet.

Fellow Rookie Class team Jetstream Tango (Ellen Steckbar, Kati Matyka, Eric Bambach, Megan Pulver, with Marcello Lupo on camera) more than doubled the team's meet average compared to the first meet in June and finished with a 3.3 average.

AA Class team CSC Pareto Optimal posted a new team highscore for a single round, as well. The 13-pointer in Round 2 was one of three 2-digit scores last weekend, and the meet average went up from 9.7 to 11.0 on the team's home turf.

The Pareto Optimal lineup has less than 60 jumps together at this point in time. Pareto returned to the Chicagoland Skydiving Center on Sunday hoping to complete the meet, but the DZ was under a weather hold all day with the exception of a few hop and pop loads.

MWSL Director Alan Butt reported that every team performed strongly: "It was truly a shame that we were limited to just three rounds." He added that Rookie Class team Flying Fish won a special award for the new highscore and the great performance. The team will have one free round at the next MWSL meet.

He completed his update with thank you notes for the support at this meet and an invitation to the next MWSL competition:

"Thanks to Rhythm for providing a high level of 4-way coaching for the meet. Thanks to Doug, Lisa, Melissa and the whole CSC staff for being gracious hosts. The meet represented the 11th consecutive season that CSC has hosted an NSL event.

The MWSL August meet is already less than three weeks away, being held on August 8 at Skydive Chicago. It will feature former world champion 4-way competitor Kirk Verner as the meet coach and Rhythm's outside center JaNette Lefkowitz as meet director. I look forward to seeing everyone there and will ask DZO Rook Nelson to guarantee blue skies..."