This past weekend, the Southern Connecticut Synchronized Skating (SCSS) and the Skating Club of Southern Connecticut (SCSC) hosted the 16th annual Terry Conners Synchronized Skating Open, where 74 teams, a record amount of teams, travelled from as far as Texas and Maine.
By the time the Shimmers took the ice on Sunday afternoon, two of the three SCSS lines — the Sprites and the Shadows — had already won gold during the two-day synchronized skating event.
In the middle row is Daniela Castagna, Emily Seligson, Paola Gonzalez, Talia Klein, Sofia Gonzalez, Sabrina Paris, Adeline Hawley. In the front row is Jahnavi Orr, Anna Livitz, Sydni Foster, Olivia Osinovsky and Sarah Boside.
The Shimmers, a pre-juvenile line of 13 skaters, performed fifth of six teams to win gold.
“I heard the crowd cheering loudly and I knew that we won,” said Athena Hartigan, a Riverside resident and student at Eastern Middle School.
The Shadows bested seven teams in their Open Juvenile group, with their gold-winning performance to “A Brand New Day” from The Wiz.
“No words can describe the feeling of performing what I love to do most with the people I love,” said Sami Scordo, a 17-year-old senior at Greenwich High School. “I hope everyone in the audience felt what we did — absolutely speechless. It’s something I’ll remember for a lifetime.”
The Sprites, a basic skills level two line, kicked off the gold medal count on Saturday with their performance to the classic, “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
“We were synchronized in every way — our skating, our excitement, and even our nervousness,” said Stamford resident Emily Seligson a sixth-grader at Bi-Cultural Day School.
According to SCSS head coach Gina Valenzano, this was the first time in the club’s history that all three lines finished tops in the same competition.
“Our oldest line (Shadows) has a number of seniors who have skated together for a long time,” said Valenzano. “Our younger lines have a lot of skaters together for the first time. I think each team’s performance helped to motivate the next. They pulled together this weekend and became one. As soon as the Shimmers finished skating, I looked at Kari and Val (assistant coaches) and asked, ‘Did that just happen?’ At that point, I couldn’t have been prouder or have asked more from each of our teams. Then, that final first place finish was the cherry on top. Wow, what a great day.”
Event Chairperson Cathy Kolbasiuk said, “Our parent organization makes this incredible event possible every year. Not only did our skaters come together as a team, we came together as a club. What could be better after months of preparation and long hours, than to have all three of our teams win gold?”
This year’s team is comprised of 42 skaters from Stamford, Greenwich, Westport, Darien, Norwalk, New Canaan and White Plains, N.Y. and each team consists of eight to 20 skaters who perform a program together.
Each program is judged on required elements, speed, challenging step sequences and precision, as well as for style and artistic expression. This event is fully sanctioned by the USFSA and draws 18 nationally ranked competition judges from the Tri-state area, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and Upstate New York.
For more information about the SCSS team, visit Terryconnerssynchro.org. To watch a video of the three championship performances, click here for the Shadows, here for the shimmers and here for the Sprites.
