Four novice national championships were decided Tuesday at the U.S. Championships in Cleveland.
Joshua Farris won the novice men’s competition with an impressive 27.45 point margin over Steven Evans (133.60). Farris landed seven triples, four in combination, and performed Level 4 spins for 161.05 total points leaving Evans with silver, Jason Brown (132.84) with bronze and Jay Yostanto (124.16) with pewter.
The novice ladies crown went to Kiri Baga (120.16) although she popped her opening double axel in the free skate. Baga rebounded to cleanly perform the rest of her program including three combinations, the triple toe-double toe, triple Salchow-double toe and triple toe-double toe-double loop.
Mary Beth Marley (116.53) claimed the silver medal. Also on the novice ladies podium were Angela Wang, who claimed bronze with 114.55, and Nina Jiang, who finished with 112.81.
In the novice pairs competition, silver medalists Cassie Andrews and Nicholas Anderson edged out bronze medalists Haven Denney and Daniel Raad, 116.20 to 115.09. Lauren Gifford and Carson Bodnarek (106.67) are the pewter medalists.
Lauri Bonacorsi and Travis Mager won the novice ice dance championship with 105.80 points. Anastasia Olson and Jordan Cowan (101.78) captured the silver medal. Moriah Tabon and Matt Kleffman won bronze with 96.76 while Gabrielle Friedenberg and Benjamin Nykiel (94.19) took pewter.
Junior Grand Prix Final champions Madison Chock and Greg Zuerlein, who won the junior compulsory dance with 52.89 points and take a 1.11-point lead over Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani into the free dance. Third place belongs to Piper Gilles and Zach Donohue (76.83).
The U.S. Championship continues Wednesday at 12:50 p.m. local time with the junior men’s short program. The senior compulsory dance is at 3:30; junior pairs short program is ar 5:50; and junior ladies free skate is at 8:50. The Opening Ceremony is from 8:05-8:30.
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