From: loosemore-sandra@CS.Yale.Edu (Sandra Loosemore)
Newsgroups: rec.skate
Subject: Eastern sectionals report
Date: 08 Jan 1995 16:36:58 GMT
Organization: Yale Haskell project
Lines: 136
NNTP-Posting-Host: functor.systemsz.cs.yale.edu

Disclaimer: this post doesn't contain many results, just commentary.  I 
saw somebody else volunteered to collect & post results before I went to 
the competition, so I didn't bother to copy everything down myself.

Senior Men:

It was generally not a good night for the men on Friday with the short
program.  Michael Chack put his hand down on his triple axel and had a
slight two-foot on his triple lutz, but the overall quality of the
rest of his program saved him from complete disaster.  Then Shep Clark
also put his hand down on his triple axel, and made a second major
error when he turned his triple lutz into a double.  Michael Weiss
managed to land his triple axel combo (although he was a little slow),
but then went sprawling on his triple lutz.

Jason Sylvia, the black guy coached by the Scotvolds, was the only one
to skate a reasonably clean short program.  His jumps (including a
triple axel combination) were great, but he almost fell out of his
flying sit spin at the end of his program.  Anyway, he ended up in
first place in the short, and deservedly so.

In the free skate, Michael Chack hit his triple axel this time but
fell twice on other jumps.  His music was some nondescript pop stuff
that I didn't recognize.  He's clearly the most stylish skater of this
bunch (he has really great stretch and extension), and his marks were
mostly 5.5s and 5.6s.

Shep's program turned into a disaster -- he popped several of his jumps,
and fell once.  He skated well enough to hang on to 4th place, though.

Jason Sylvia came out next and once again nailed *all* of his jumps.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much in between them; his spins and
connecting steps were pretty weak.  I thought the judges were right on
in putting him in second place behind Chack on the basis of his weak
presentation, but there was a lot of booing of his marks.

Last out was Michael Weiss.  He stepped out of his triple axel but
otherwise skated pretty well.  He's doing the same Mozart(?)-ish
program he did at the Goodwill games, but you all will be glad to hear
that he *has* ditched that atrocious turquoise costume.  Now he's
wearing plain black pants and what looked like a black velour shirt
with a subdued jacquard pattern.  Anyway, he ended up in 3rd place,
although he got a few 2nd place votes and one judge even placed him
first.


Senior Ladies

The only way to describe this competition is that Kyoko Ina simply
blew the skates off of everyone else.  Before I'd been wondering why
she was bothering to compete singles again, but it's clear she's now
established herself as a major contender.  She's picked up a
rock-solid triple lutz (I did not see her miss this jump *once* in
practice) and is even doing a triple lutz/triple toe combination in
her free program.

The only other competitor who skated at all well was Kathaleen Kelly
Cutone.  She fell on her most difficult jump (a triple loop), but
she's a fine all-around skater, just lovely to watch.  And, talk about
a role model for the younger girls -- besides competing both freestyle
and figures and being qualified as a national judge, she's going to
law school at the same time.

I'm not sure who got the other two spots for Nationals, since I left
before the results were announced.  Robyn Petrosky, Amanda Farkas,
Patricia Mansfield, and Jennifer Hunt were the others in the top group
after the short, but they all crashed and burned in the free skate.
Lisa Bell may have skated well enough to pull up a couple of spots.

BTW, Lisa Ervin was listed in the program but did not compete.  I
don't know if she's been given a bye to Nationals or if she's decided
not to compete at all this year.  I heard that Teresa Aiello and
Chrisha Gossard were both given byes along with all the other junior
world team members.


Senior Pairs

There were only three pairs competing in this event -- Ina & Dungjen
withdrew.  I think they get an automatic bye to nationals since there
were only four pairs entered.  Anyway, the competition was won by last
year's national junior champions, Nicole Bateson-Rock and Keith
Tindall.  They skated a "Nutcracker" program that was really cute.
Their difficulty was not so high but they skated clean, which was more
than the other two pairs could do.


Senior Dance

Again, there were only three couples in this event.  Amy Webster & Ron
Kravette did a "Phantom of the Opera" free dance that didn't really
strike me as anything special, but the judges liked it well enough to
put them in first place.  I really liked the music that the
Fitzgeralds used -- jazz Bach arrangements -- and they placed 2nd in
spite of having a fall.  Laura Gayton & Oleg Fediukov did "Zorba the
Greek", which had a lot of character, but altogether too much
side-by-side skating.

I am not sure why Millette & Tebo did not compete here.  They were listed
in the program.  They did very well at last year's nationals and I was
looking forward to seeing them again.


Other stuff

I nominate Rebekah and Noah Breen for the cute couple award.  They're
really young kids competing in novice dance, and they're at the age
where she's bigger than he is.  They used this a bit in their
choreography -- *she* lifted *him*!  :-)

The junior ladies event was won by Brittney McConn, and I was quite
impressed by her.  One thing I noticed was that she *skates* well --
no scratching or scraping through her stroking and footwork, and she
gets such nice flow and speed out of her jumps.  Amanda Ward, who
placed second, did a lot more jumps, but there was just no comparison
in the overall quality of skating.  (BTW, Tara Lipinski was listed in the
program but did not compete, since she was given a bye to nationals.)

I was all set to cheer on the net's own Sean Henry in the adult men's
competition, but for some reason he failed to show up.  Generally, the
adult competitions looked like fun, and if I could get a few more of
my jumps back it's something I'd consider doing myself.  It's kind of
neat to see normal-looking, pudgy folks with grey hair who are
obviously just out there to skate for the sense of personal achievement.

Name-dropping time: I talked to Ron Kravette again (it seems like I've
been seeing him at every competition I've been to in the past 5
years), and literally bumped into Keith Tindall, who is not nearly as
tall in real life as he appears to be when he's skating.  (His partner
must be a midget.)  I mingled a bit with Michael Chack -- in fact, he
was sitting next to me with a bunch of other folks from his rink for
most of Friday evening.  I also spotted Mark Mitchell hanging around
on Saturday but he was surrounded by a bunch of people all the time so
I never got a chance to talk to him at all.

-Sandra