With Seabrook's Scotty Lago and Amesbury's Dylan Ferguson, slated to compete in the Olympics later this month, the River Rival Region appears to be a playground for world-class winter athletes.
Three more athletes emerged from the collection of local winter stars last month by earning bronze medals at the Cup of Berlin Synchronized Skating Championship in Germany. Newburyport's Sarah Archer, Newbury's Maeve Tobin and Newburyport's Abbey Crowther were three of 20 members of the Haydenettes, a senior team that represented the United States at the international competition.
The Haydenettes are considered the top senior-level synchronized skating team in the United States. They won their 17th U.S. title at the 2008 US Synchronized Skating Championships. In 2009, they placed fourth at the World Synchronized Skating Championships.
Archer, Tobin and Crowther were also teammates on the Ice Mates of Lexington in 2007, when they won a silver medal at the U.S. Synchronized Team Skating Championship. Now as members of the Haydenettes, a team of 16- to 26-year-old females, the locals compete against teams from Czechlovakia, Finland, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
Competing in front of an arena of 3,500 spectators and showered with cheers of "U-S-A," the Haydenettes first skated to the song, "What a Wonderful World," by Sarah Brightman, and received a score of 77.97 for the 2-minute-and-50-second performance. At that point, the Haydenettes sat in second place behind Finland's Rockettes (83.46 points). After the Haydenettes' second performance to the "West Side Story" sound track, the team's score of 134.64 ranked third overall behind two Finish teams.
"Our team was proud to stand on the podium at this event," Archer said.
The Haydenettes have set 2010 goals to defend their the national title and represent the U.S. at the 2010 World Synchronized Skating Championship in Colorado Springs in April.
Newburyport's Houghton wins adult championship
Newburyport's Beth Houghton, who competed with the Haydenettes for 10 years as part of her 25 years of synchronized skating, was part of the Espirit de Corps skating team that placed first at the 2010 Eastern Synchronized Skating Sectional Championships last weekend at the Tsongas Center in Lowell. Houghton is a coach of the Sharper Edge synchronized skating team in Dover, N.H.
With the first-place finish, Houghton's team qualified for the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships, which will be held on March 3 to 6 in Minneapolis, Minn.
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