2017 U.S. Nationals: Junior Pairs

RESULTS:
Junior Pairs FS results/protocols (Thu. 12 noon pm ET start time)
GOLD – Nica Digerness, Broadmoor SC / Danny Neudecker, Seattle SC 54.66 (1) 98.69 (1) 153.35
SILVER – Elli Kopmar / Jonah Barrett, Southwest Florida FSC 54.01 (2) 93.89 (2) 147.90
BRONZE – Alexandria Yao, Peninsula SC / Austin Hale, Fort Wayne ISC 53.55 (3) 91.09 (3) 144.64
PEWTER – Lindsay Weinstein, DuPage FSC / Jacob Simon, Skokie Valley SC
5 Laiken Lockley / Keenan Prochnow, DuPage FSC 47.45 (8) 88.22 (4) 135.67
6 Vanessa Chen, Peninsula SC / Eric Hartley, Queen City FSC 49.22 (5) 82.24 (7) 131.46
7 Gabriella Marvaldi / Daniel Villeneuve, SC Of Southern New Jersey 48.81 (6) 81.44 (8) 130.25
8 Emma Coppess, All Year FSC / Robert Hennings, Los Angeles FSC 46.42 (9) 82.32 (6) 128.74
9 Isabella Gamez, Los Angeles FSC / Griffin Schwab, SC of New York 47.94 (7) 79.29 (9) 127.23
10 Kate Finster, Northern Kentucky SC / Brandon Kozlowski, Atlanta FSC 44.10 (1) 73.70 (10) 117.80
11 Jillian Smart / Matthew Rounis, SC of New York 39.82 (11) 65.70 (12) 105.52
12 Hannah Klopstock, Los Angeles FSC / Daniel Arsenault, Colorado SC 34.47 (12) 67.32 (11) 101.79

Junior Pairs SP results/protocols
Top 4 after SP:
1 Nica Digerness, Broadmoor SC / Danny Neudecker, Seattle SC 54.66
2 Elli Kopmar, Southwest Florida FSC / Jonah Barrett, Southwest Florida FSC 54.01
3 Alexandria Yao, Peninsula SC / Austin Hale, Fort Wayne ISC 53.55
4 Lindsay Weinstein, DuPage FSC / Jacob Simon, Skokie Valley SC 52.48

ARTICLES & PHOTOS:
IceNetwork’s Junior Pairs FS recap article by Lynn Rutherford for IceNetwork

Nica Digerness and Danny Neudecker used a strong triple twist and superior skating skills to overcome falls on two throw triple jumps and win the junior pairs title at the 2017 U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Thursday.
The Colorado Springs-based skaters, who train in Dalilah Sappenfield’s group at the Broadmoor World Arena, performed an elegant and mature free skate to Franz Liszt’s “Liebesträume” that also featured side-by-side double axels, dramatic lifts and an effective closing sequence including Digerness’ spread eagle into a death spiral, transitioning into a Level 4 closing spin. They won the free skate with 98.69 points and claimed gold with 153.35 points.
“The choreography felt the best we’ve ever skated it,” Neudecker, 20, said. “Of all of our run-throughs, this felt the best in terms of expression.”
“I was trying to fight for every point, trying to sell it and perform it as best I could,” Digerness, 16, said. “By the end, I was on autopilot, doing what I always do in practice.”
Sappenfield chalked up Digerness’ falls on the throw triple salchow and throw triple loop to a bit of inexperience.
“She did beautiful throws in the warmup,” the coach said, “but this was the first time we put two triple throws in the program, and I think she was thinking so much about not missing them that she missed them. Those are actually pretty easy throws for her now.”
The win is especially sweet, since Digerness and Neudecker didn’t even know if they would skate at the junior level this season.
“They wanted to move up to junior, and I said, ‘You are going to have to really work to do that,'” Sappenfield said. “They said they were ready to work. So we competed at the Broadmoor (Open) and then Skate Detroit, they did well, and I said OK.”
“We had kind of a slow start. Then we got into it more and more, and progressed,” Neudecker said. “After Detroit, we got assigned to the Russian Junior Grand Prix, and that was that.”
After claiming gold in the intermediate and novice ranks the past two seasons, Elli Kopmar and Jonah Barrett won silver here with a whimsical, cleanly skated routine to “Flying” from James Newton Howard’s Peter Pan that included two throw triples, side-by-side double axels and a solid Level 4 combination spin. The performance earned 93.89 points, and they finished with 147.90 points total.
“I really like this program. I like playing Tinkerbell — I’m all about the sparkles,” Kopmar, 13, said. “It was very fun for me to do it.”
“We put a lot of emphasis on performing our characters,” Barrett, 19, said. “It was a strong performance. We skated close to the potential we could, but we’re already talking about next season and our new plans.”
Jim Peterson, who coaches the pair in Ellenton, Florida, thinks the skaters are exceptionally easy to train.
“For me, they’re very easy and rewarding, because at young ages, they are both open to any artistic and choreographic direction,” Peterson said. “It was a really easy character portrayal for both of them.”
Skating to a romantic medley including John Barry’s “Somewhere in Time,” Indiana-based Alexandria Yao and Austin Hale hit a fine Level 3 triple twist as well as elegant lifts. Yao fell on a double axel, but the team placed third in the free skate and won bronze with 144.64 points.
“This is only our second competition together (after Pacific Coast Sectionals), so I’m happy with how we did,” Hale said. “We just got the twist a month ago.”
“We’ve only skated together for four months, which isn’t much time to get the basics down, and the elements, too,” Yao said. “I’m happy with what we tried, especially the twist.”
Another Colorado Springs team, Lindsey Weinstein and Jacob Simon, were fourth with 137.22 points.

IceNetwork’s Junior Pairs FS photo gallery

IceNetwork’s Junior Pairs SP recap article by Lynn Rutherford for IceNetwork

Nica Digerness and Danny Neudecker performed a smooth and stylish short program to Khachaturian’s Spartacus to eke out a 0.65-point lead over Elli Kopmar and Jonah Barrett in the junior pairs short program Tuesday night at the 2017 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Colorado Springs-based skaters, who train in Dalilah Sappenfield’s group at the World Arena, overcame Digerness’ fall on a double axel with other strong elements — including a solid triple twist and fine axel lasso lift — to earn 54.66 points.
“Our components were really good, and most of our elements went well,” Digerness, 16, said. “I could have checked a little harder on the landing of the double axel.”
“We’ve been working on the presentation, and that’s been our big focus, not really the elements at all,” Neudecker, 20, said. “It felt really good. We smiled through the whole program.”
Digerness and Neudecker paired up about 18 months ago, and this is their second season training in Colorado Springs. Last season, they placed seventh in novice.
“It was a personal-best program for them,” Sappenfield said. “Our goal was to get [Nica] confident with the double axel in the short; she is more confident with it in the long. She had it; she just needed to check out of it. She has to own it, because it’s not an element she misses at home. Otherwise, we were really pleased.”
Kopmar and Barrett, too, executed solid elements in their short set to exotic Middle Eastern music, including side-by-side double axels, a Level 2 triple twist and a free-flowing step sequence that saw Barrett leap into a fine split jump.
“We skated to our potential, and we kept it calm, kept it easy, and that’s all we really had to do,” Barrett, 19, said. “At the beginning of the season, the music felt so different from anything we’d ever done before and was out of our comfort zone. Now, we’ve come to love it a lot.”
The Ellenton, Florida, skaters are bidding for their third consecutive U.S. title, having won the intermediate pairs crown in 2015 and the novice title last season.
“When we first started, I didn’t dream we would be so successful, because it was just the first couple of years,” Kopmar, 13, said. “Now I feel more confident. We just try to copy and paste what we do at home, and it feels really good.”
Jim Peterson, who heads up a coaching team including Amanda Evora and Lyndon Johnston, was pleased with how his team executed some new elements.
“I was really happy because it’s the first time they’ve done the triple twist and a really solid set of double axels,” he said. “We had planned a throw triple, but we thought it was safer to do a double today, because there was so much new content they had not performed under pressure before.”
Alexandria Yao and Austin Hale performed an elegant program to a modern version of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” highlighted by their well-matched lines and a lovely, free-flowing step sequence that gained Level 4 from the technical panel. They are close behind the leaders with 53.55 points.
“We tried a couple of harder elements (including triple twist and double axels), and I think we did pretty well in attempting them,” Yao, 16, said. “I’m just really happy we got to show off the program at nationals.”
“We only teamed up in August of last year,” Hale, 20, said. “We tried a few new tricks, and we did pretty well.”
Hale won junior bronze medals in 2015 and 2016 with two other partners, but he and Yao teamed up just over four months ago.
“I am so proud that they were able to put out a good program after such a short time together,” said Alena Lunin, who coaches the pair in Fort Wayne, Indianad. “[Yao] has only skated pairs for about two years.”
Lindsay Weinstein and Jacob Simon, winners of the junior silver medal last season, skated a polished short to Maxime Rodriguez’s “Eleonore” and sit fourth with 52.48 points.

IceNetwork’s Junior Pairs SP photo gallery

TEAM PROFILES:

Vanessa Chen & Eric Hartley
Ages: 16 & 18; (M/D/Y) 8/10/00 & 6/19/98
Training Town: Cincinnati, OH
Coach: Richard Hartley, Serguei Zaitsev, Kyoko Ina
Choreographer: Alena Lunin, S. Zaitsev, R. Hartley, Krzysztof Tomczak, Austin Tomczak
SP: “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson (debuted at Sectionals)
FS: “The Prayer” performed by Celine Dion and Josh Groban
Scores at Sectionals: 48.97(SP)/76.88(FS)/125.85 (P3)
JGP scores: 44.02(SP)/80.07(FS)/124.09
Notes: They are a new team and debuted on the JGP this season. He was the 2015 Novice champion with Kate Finster; she won the 2015 Novice pewter medal with Robert Przepioski.

Emma Coppess & Robert Hennings
Ages: 14 & 20; 5/5/02 & 10/9/96
Training Town: Artesia, CA
Coach/Choreographer: Peter Oppegard
SP: “Fearsome Flight” by Cirque du Soleil
FS: “Silent Film Piano Adventure Theme” by Craig Riley
Scores at Sectionals: 45.32(SP)/80.90(FS)/126.22 (P2)
Notes: They are the 2016 Novice pewter medalists. She also competed in the Novice Ladies event here, finishing 10th.

Nica Digerness & Danny Neudecker
Ages: 16 & 20; 3/21/00 & 3/2/96
Training Town: Colorado Springs, CO
Coach: Dailah Sappenfield, Drew Meekins, Larry Ibarra, Natalya Khazova, Eddie Shipstad, Ryan Jahnke
Choreographer: Drew Meekins, D. Sappenfield
SP: Adagio from Spartacus by Khachaturian
FS: “Liebestraum” by Franz Liszt
Scores at Sectionals: 54.02(SP)/86.22(FS)/140.24 (M1)
JGP high scores: 49.36/82.44/131.80
Notes: They debuted and competed twice on the JGP this fall and placed 7th in Novice last year.

Kate Finster & Brandon Kozlowski
Ages: 13 & 21; 12/14/03 & 6/21/95
Training Town: Louisville, KY
Coach: Dalilah Sappenfield (Jessica Miller in KY)
Choreographer: Robert Mauti
SP: “The Pink Panther” by Henry Mancini
FS: Music from The Great Gatsby and Lana Del Rey
Scores at Sectionals: 41.40(SP)/69.98(FS)/111.38 (E4)
Notes: They are a new team this season. She was the 2015 Novice champion with Eric Hartley; he placed 10th in Junior Pairs last year.

Isabella Gamez & Griffin Schwab
Ages: 17 & 20; 2/1/99 & 6/28/96
Training Town: Aliso Viejo, CA
Coach: Todd Sand, Jenni Meno, John Nicks
Choreographer: Phillip Mills, Christine Fowler-Binder
SP: “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” by Carlos Santana
FS: Music from The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky
Scores at Sectionals: 40.28(SP)/80.76(FS)/121.04 (P4)
Notes: They are the 2016 Novice silver medalists.

Hannah Klopstock & Daniel Arsenault
Ages: 19 & 22; 1/27/97; 6/25/94
Training Town: Colorado Springs, CO
Coach: Dalilah Sappenfield, Larry Ibarra
Choreographer: Phillip Mills, Drew Meekins
SP: Music from Pan by John Powell
FS: Music from Titanic by James Horner
Scores at Sectionals: 25.58(SP)/49.40(FS)/74.98 (M4)
Notes: They are a new team this season.

Elli Kopmar & Jonah Barrett
Ages: 13 & 19; 11/20/03 & 1/28/97
Training Town: Ellenton, FL
Coach: Jim Peterson, Lyndon Johnston, Amanda Evora
Choreographer: Jim Peterson, Lyndon Johnston
SP: “Moroccan Roll” (?) – Middle Eastern-themed music
FS: “Flying” from Peter Pan by James Newton Howard
Scores at Sectionals: 49.52(SP)/78.76(FS)/128.28 (E2)
Notes: They are the 2016 Novice champions and the 2015 Intermediate champions.

Laiken Lockley & Keenan Prochnow
Ages: 14 & 19; 7/21/02 & 12/31/97
Training Town: Geneva, IL
Coach/Choreographer: Rockne Brubaker, Stefania Berton
SP: Music from A Chorus Line by Marvin Hamlisch
FS: Music from Les Retrouvailles by Yann Tiersen
Scores at Sectionals: 42.90(SP)/80.06(FS)/122.96 (M2)
JGP scores: 46.46/82.85/129.31
Notes: They debuted on the JGP this season and placed 5th in Novice last year.

Gabriella Marvaldi & Daniel Villeneuve
Ages: 16 & 19; 11/1/00 & 7/2/97
Training Town: Mount Laurel, NJ
Coach: Rocky Marval, Isabelle Brasseur, Bruno Marcotte
Choreographer: Julie Marcotte
SP: “Feeling Good” performed by Michael Buble and Avicii
FS: Music from Les Miserables performed by Lindsey Stirling
Scores at Sectionals: 50.78(SP)/83.70(FS)/134.48 (E1)
JGP high scores: 46.85/85.42/132.27
Notes: They are a new team this season and competed twice on the JGP. Marvaldi is the daughter of Olympic and World pair skaters from the U.S. (Marval) and Canada (Brasseur). Villeneuve won the Novice Pairs bronze medal in Canada last year with his previous partner.

Jillian Smart & Matthew Rounis
Ages: 16 & 20; 3/25/00 & 5/23/96
Training Town: Boxborough, MA
Coach: Bobby Martin, Carrie Wall
Choreographer: Carrie Wall
SP: “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen
FS: Music from The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein
Scores at Sectionals: 40.12(SP)/63.06(FS)/103.18 (E5)
Notes: They placed 6th in Novice at Eastern Sectionals last year.
They replaced Rose/Goodpaster here.

Lindsay Weinstein & Jacob Simon
Ages: 16 & 19; 2/18/00 & 3/13/97
Training Town: Colorado Springs, CO
Coach: Dalilah Sappenfield, Larry Ibarra, Drew Meekins
Choreographer: D. Sappenfield
SP: “Eleonore” by Maxime Rodriguez
FS: Music from Notre Dame de Paris by Riccardo Cocciante
FS & Total score at Sectionals: 41.84(SP)/59.04(FS)/100.88 (M3)
ISU personal best scores (2016 Junior Worlds): 48.75/88.83/137.58
Notes: They are the 2016 Junior silver medalists and 2015 Junior pewter medalists. They competed their third season on the JGP this past fall.

Alexandria Yao & Austin Hale
Ages: 16 & 20; 4/5/00 & 4/28/96
Training Town: Fort Wayne, IN
Coach/Choreographer: Alena Lunin
SP: “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven (modern version)
FS: Heart of Courage by Thomas Bergersen and Somewhere in Time by John Barry
Scores at Sectionals: 49.68(SP)/97.72(FS)/142.40 (P1)
Notes: They are a new team this season. He won Junior bronze medals at 2016 & 2015 Nationals with his two previous partners.

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Sarah Rose & Joseph Goodpaster (WD)
Ages: 15 & 19; 4/9/01 & 8/21/97
Training Town: Ellenton, FL
Coach: Jim Peterson, Amanda Evora, Lyndon Johnston
Choreographer: Jim Peterson
SP: “Be Our Guest” (from Beauty and the Beast) by Alan Menken
FS: Music from How to Train Your Dragon by John Powell
Total Score at Sectionals: 121.44 (E2)
ISU personal best scores (2016 Youth Olympic Games): 46.47/80.06/126.53
Notes: They are the 2015 Novice silver medalists and have competed twice on the JGP in the past 2 years. They represented Team USA at the 2016 Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, and won a gold medal in the Mixed Team event.