Alissa Czisny, the 2009 ladies national championship, finished 10th at last year's championship. Due to this finish she had to qualify for nationals despite winning a Grand Prix event two weeks earlier. She won Midwesterns by over 30 points. According to her scores, the short program was good, but the long program had some issues including two falls. The other skaters rounding out the top four and earning a trip to Nationals hail from Colorado - Morgan Bell, Katy Jo West and Tatyana Khazova.
The senior mens event was much more competitive between a veteran of senior nationals (Pennington), junior grand prix competitors (Brown and Johnson) and a skater moving into the senior ranks after success as a junior competitor (Hochstein). Jason Brown edged out Grant Hochstein. Parker Pennington finished 3rd and Alexander Johnson rounds out the top four that advanced to nationals.
| Only three couples competed in the senior pairs event. Molly Aaron and Daniyel Cohen won the event. The new team of Becky Bereswill and Trevor Young finished 2nd and advanced to Nationals. | ||||||||
Easterns - Aston, Pennsylvania
Samantha Cesario won senior ladies. Melissa Bulanhagui, Kelsey Traunero and Joelle Forte also advanced. Forte is an older skater, mid-twenties so it's always fun to see a slightly older skater without major sponsors advance.
There were four couples in both the dance and pairs events, but I didn't recognize any of the competitors. It appears it will be a first nationals for those skaters and possible Grand Prix events in the future.
Pacific Coasts - Culver City, CA
Vanessa Lam conquered the senior ladies event by 18 points. She sure is having a great year also having won her only Junior Grand Prix event. Danielle Kahle finished 2nd. She had competed at nationals a few years ago and thought she moved on as she got older, so it's nice to see her name near the top of the sectionals competitors. There was another oldie but goodie at this event, Laura Lipetski finished 11th. She competed at senior nationals back in the late 90s. So she actually competed against Michelle Kwan, Nicole Bobek, Tara Lipinski and Tonia Kwiatkowski. How cool is that? That's gonna inspire me in tomorrow practice working on those junior moves thinking I need to switch to the adult moves track.
Rockne Brubaker and his new partner Mary Beth Marley were the only senior pair there. They only skated their short and scored something like 52 pts for it. Mary Beth also competed in Jr. ladies and qualified for Nationals by finishing 4th.
Jonathan Cassar won the senior mens event and will be gracing us with his awe-inspiring spread eagles at nationals.
