posted May 9th, 2017 - The 2017 season of the Northern California Skydiving League began with its first meet last Saturday at Skydive California, SkyDance and the Lodi Parachute Center.

It was a very exciting first meet for the NCSL with the introduction of its new format, where the meets were synchronized at three NorCal DZ's the same day. Seven teams were registered to attend the meet, but spread out among three of the NorCal DZs with three teams at Skydive California, three at SkyDance and one at Lodi.

Each location had its own meet director with Lori Connor at SkyDance, Leander van Schriek at Skydive California and Maria Sheets at Lodi. To tie the meets together, the meet directors entered and shared the scores after each jump online.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate at all for Maria Sheets' team, Airstream, at Lodi where she was unable to jump due to a weather hold. Intermittent weather holds also occurred at Skydive California, but Leander van Schriek's AA Class team was able to complete four of the meet rounds. A Class team Sparkle and Rookie Class team No Belly Stars could at least make three of their jumps.

NCSL 2017 - May Meet		1	2	3	4	5	6	Total	Avg
Rank	AA Class	7,19	G,O,D,F	Q,13,14	J,21,9	K,C,1	20,E,A	Total	Avg
1	DeLoreans	9	17	7	10	10	9	62	10.3
2	Turn & Burn	7	11	4	10	-	-	32	8.0
Rank	A Class	7,19	G,O,D	Q,F,21	K,N,6	H,C,9	E.A.J	Total	Avg
1	Sparkle	5	5	-	-	-	-	10	5.0
Rank	Rookie	K,N,B	G,O,D	Q,F,M	P,E,L	H,C,K	E,A,J	Total	Avg
1	8-Armed Skytapus	4	3	4	5	-	-	16	4.0
2	No Belly Stars	3	4	6	-	-	-	13	4.3
3	Goldi-Docks and the Bear	3	3	0	1	-	-	7	1.8
4	Airstream	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

The teams at SkyDance enjoyed beautiful weather and were able to complete the whole meet. Lori Connor's team, the DeLoreans, with Matt Stephens (Outside Center), Will Harris (Point), Volker Haag (Tail) and Monty Stephens (Video) posted a 10.3 average at SkyDance after six rounds.

Leander van Schriek's player coach AA Class team Turn & Burn completed four rounds at Skydive California and finished with an 8.0 average. Turn & Burn's full lineup consisted of Lukasz Weber (Outside Center), Jeff Jensen (Tail), Kiran Shivaram (Point) and Manu Labadie (Video).

No Belly Stars with Michael Stevens (Tail), Maciej Katafiasz (OC), Travis McGowan (Point), Bret Cooke (Video) and player coaches Deanna Frank with alternate Julius Frank (Inside Centers), competed at Skydive California and won the Rookie Class with its 4.3 average after completing only three jumps due to weather. Deanna and Julius Frank filled a last minute slot on this team due to an injured No Belly Stars member.

8-Armed Skytapus competed in the Rookie Class at Skydance and took the 2nd place with a 4.0 average, followed by Goldi-Docks and the Bear in 3rd place. Sparkle competed at Skydive California in the A Class and had no competition.

The NCSL 2017 season opener also included the introduction of the Outdoor Cloud League sequences for May, where the 4th round of Saturday's meet draw was at the same time the correlating May sequence for the same OCL category.

The different events tied together even more since the same May draw will also be applied at the NCSL Tunnel Kickers held at iFLY SFBay and iFLY Sacramento this month. DeLoreans and Turn & Burn both scored 10-pointers in Round 4 of the AA Class (J-21-9) and added those scores to the OCL leaderboards for SkyDance and Skydive California, respectively.

8-Armed Skytapus won the internal OCL/Round 4 competition at SkyDance with a 5-pointer for the RRR Class sequence (P-E-L).

Unfortunately, due to the weather, no other teams at Skydive California were able to complete the 4th round of the meet, which would have added more scores to the OCL leaderboard for Skydive California.

Outdoor Cloud League 2017		AAA	AA	A	RRR	RR	R	Total
Rank	May	K,21,N,5	J,21,9	K,N,6	P,E,L	M,K,N	M,J	Total
1	SkyDance SkyDiving	-	10	-	5	-	-	15
2	Skydive California	-	10	-	-	-	-	10

Making it even more interesting was the fact that the DeLoreans were in the tunnel together on Friday before the meet and added 37 points for iFLY Sacramento on ICL 12+ leaderboard. They performed the same AA Class sequence (J-21-9) at the first part of the NCSL Tunnel Kickers in May, then at NCSL Meet #1, and also for the May leaderboard of the Outdoor Cloud League.

NCSL Director Lori Connor had her hands full last weekend, and she was grateful when it was completed successfully:

"Thank you so much to the teams for coming out and participating at the NCSL's first meet! Thank you, Leander van Schriek, for meet directing at Skydive California, along with jumping, judging and coaching! Deanna and Julius Frank for the last minute save on the team slot and also for your coaching! Thank you Maria Sheets, and sorry that your team did not get to jump due to weather!

A big shout out goes out to Skydive California, SkyDance and the Lodi Parachute Center for hosting the meet and for providing us such a fun place to spend Saturday! NCSL's Meet #2 is on June 10th! The Outdoor Cloud League is running right now, every day, at four DZ's - Skydive California, SkyDance, Lodi and Byron! The draw can be found on the NCSL page, SKYLEAGUE.COM and at the DZ's. Let's keep the momentum we just started by adding weekly scores to each DZ's OCL Leaderboard!"