RYE skateboarder Lilly Sherriff in three years has achieved a level of fan that many merely aspire to.
At 11, she is already a wizard in the bowl, a long way from the eight-year-old whose first board was picked up at a garage sale.
It didn’t take long for Lilly to demonstrate a natural ability on the board, gliding the concrete ramps like they were rivers of water and flying high on the momentum.
Friends and family were impressed, and pretty soon her reputation grew around the state, and then the country.
Who was this tiny girl skateboarder appearing mid-air regularly on social media?
Professional coaching at Progression Skate sessions in Balnarring helped fine tune Lilly’s skills and train her for big things in the sport. Then she and a friend heard about an exciting skate school and applied (unbeknownst to mum Sally). That didn’t go so well, but Lilly got a second chance to wow the assessors at a competition in Melbourne, against some tough rivals.
Lily came first in the bowl competition and managed to impress her assessor in the vert competition enough to be offered a place at the Level Up National Sports Academy.
Lilly is now enrolled in the Queensland-based academy, which caters for anyone wanting to further their skills in skateboarding, surfing and freestyle BMX. Its programs, which have developed some of the best skaters in the country, will upskill her in trick-based aerial skating, including flips, spins, lip and switch skating.
Lilly will initially attend for a term, while taking her classes at Rye Primary School remotely. For the trip, Lilly and her family will have to raise more than $4000.
To help get Lilly to the sports academy anyone can donate at gofund.me/8d3f9c50
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 14 June 2022
