It’s been a tumultuous summer for the Lincoln Center Skate Club, but last weekend, the club got back to competition when 17 skaters competed in the 44th Annual Kathy Slack Troy Summer Competition in Troy, Ohio.
Nine LCSC skaters picked up first-place finishes, and several others medaled with second- and third-place efforts in the summer series competition that included teams from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
“It was a great competition,” LCSC coach Katie Baxter said. “Everybody came out with something. A lot of national judges were there that judge the national championships. Some of them even are team leaders for the world team and the Olympic team.”
Baxter coaches the team, along with her daughter Emma Baxter, Liz Fernandes and Heather Lehnert. This was the club’s first major competition since January.
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“The last big thing we did was the ice show in April, and then May is kind of slow and in June, everybody is back on the ice training,” Katie Baxter said. “So this is basically the biggest group that we’ve taken to a competition this season.”
Michaela Aker, who will be a fifth-grader at St. Peter’s Lutheran School, was a double-winner, taking the beginner ladies compulsory moves and beginner ladies free skate. Madeleine Shaw of Bloomington won the novice ladies jump challenge and qualified for a national competition.
Vincia Li, who will be a sixth-grader at Southside Elementary, won the pre-preliminary compulsory moves. Compulsory moves is the younger version of a short program, which has required elements that must be performed.
“For my freeskate, I was a little disappointed because I had a fall,” Li said. “But for my compulsory moves program, I felt really happy about it.”
Annika Mukherjee, who will be a fifth-grader at Parkside Elementary, won the preliminary LE showcase. Katie Baxter said Mukherjee put on a very showy number, showing interpretation of music and theatrical performance.
“I was really nervous at first, but then once I went out, I actually thought it was really fun,” Mukherjee said. “On my showcase, I just went all out with it, and I used expressions, and it was actually the most fun in the whole competition. I really loved it, and I think that’s why I did well.”
Mukherjee bounced back after finishing ninth in the preliminary plus girls excel free skate earlier that morning.
“I’m still OK with that,” Mukherjee said. “I’m still happy with what I got because I worked hard, and I did my best.”
LCSC’s Megan Miller won the adult pre-bronze ladies free skate. Shrina Surve took the high beginner girls excel compulsory moves, and Amy Xu captured the no test girls spin challenge. Vivian Nu and Sasha Luhur won pre-preliminary free skate events.
Nu also finished second in preliminary compulsory moves, Shaw took second in intermediate DE showcase and Elaia Alberdi was second in intermediate ladies free skate and third in intermediate ladies short program. Also finishing third for LCSC were Kristie Ferreira in adult pre-bronze ladies free skate, Emily Martin and Malen Bilbao in intermediate ladies free skate events, Olivia Abon in high beginner girls excel free skate and Jiyun Surve in pre-preliminary girls excel free skate.
The competition was the club’s first since being put on probation with U.S. Figure Skating. A U.S. Figure Skating panel found that the LCSC failed to properly investigate incidents of misconduct against club members, comply with SafeSport requirements and conduct background checks on all volunteers.
Katie Baxter said the club still is permitted to compete while on probation.
“We are working very closely with U.S. Figure Skating to get through our probation,” she said. “We have one meeting left. We have already done five hours of training with U.S. Figure Skating to resolve any issue that may or may not ever again come up. But we are on our way to being probation-free in the near future, and we hope to have a really great season.”
