In previous trips to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Yarmouth native Franz-Peter Jerosch usually bought a Team USA figure skating jacket.
On Tuesday night in San Jose, Jerosch picked up another Team USA jacket. This one, he earned.
Jerosch, 16, and partner Jade Hom of Massachusetts are national champions in novice pairs, an accomplishment that earns them entry-level berths on the national team and an invitation to perform in an exhibition Sunday along with U.S. skaters heading to next month’s Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“It’s amazing,” Jerosch said by phone before the medal ceremony Tuesday night. “I’m still shaking from the whole experience.”
Jerosch and Hom, 14, entered Tuesday evening’s free skate with a lead of three points following Monday’s short program. Skating 11th of 13 pairs Tuesday at Solar4America Ice arena in San Jose, they received the highest score in free skate – 80.32 – for their 3 minute, 40 second performance set to the music of three songs from the Disney movie “Pocahontas.”
“It wasn’t clean but we knew what we had to do,” Jerosch said. “We kept pushing. We stayed on our feet. That was important.”
Their two-event total of 126.99 was more than eight points ahead of runners-up Joanna and William Hubbart of Florida, siblings who rose from seventh to second overall with 118.31 points.
Another brother-sister combo, Masha Mokhova and Ivan Mokhov of Michigan, dropped from second to third after a pair of falls in their free skate, finishing with a score of 116.64.
Jerosch and Hom were in the final group of four pairs, but had an unexpected delay when siblings Jasmine and Joshua Fendi of Los Angeles, in third after the short program, had an unfortunate accident. She fell and he skated over her hand, slicing the skin and causing him to fall as well.
After a brief discussion, organizers sent two Zambonis out to resurface the blood-spattered ice and then brought the three remaining pairs out for a second warm-up.
“That second warm-up might have thrown me off,” Jerosch said. “There was a moment in there when I started to feel a little bit nervous.”
They pulled off an impressive death spiral early in their program and added two throws and a pair of side-by-side jumps, the first a double axel and the second a double flip-single toe loop. Hom, suffering all week from a cold, landed solidly after each throw.
“She’s been feeling not so great,” the 6-foot-2 Jerosch said of Hom, who stands 5 feet tall. “She’s done a fantastic job of being really strong.”
“Sometimes you go out and the stars align and it feels flawless,” said their coach, Carrie Wall, based in their training home of Boxborough, Massachusetts. “This time, they really had to fight for it. They really had to dig deep. They gave it everything they had.”
The trip to nationals was the first for Hom, a singles skater until this season, and the fifth for Jerosch, who won silver in juvenile and intermediate pairs the past two winters, each time with a different partner.
A year ago in Kansas City, Jerosch and then-partner Jade Esposito won the intermediate pairs short program, but placed second in free skate to finish runner-up by 1.5 points to Mokhov and Mokhova.
Ivan, 18, and Masha, 11, were in second place in novice pairs after Monday’s short program. They are coached by their parents, Andrey Mokhov and Oksana Yakusheva, former professionals who skated with Disney on Ice and the Russian All-Stars.
Wall said her target score was 45 in short and 80 in free.
“We thought if we got that,” she said, “we’re going to be in a really good place.”
Jerosch and Hom earned 46.67 in short and 80.32 in free. The only other score above 75 went to the Hubbarts, at 78.00.
The top three novice pairs all qualify for Team USA’s Envelope D, which includes potential for funding assistance and international competition, but only the champions are invited to the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular Sunday at the more spacious SAP Center along with medalists from the more advanced junior and championship divisions.
“It feels kind of mind-blowing,” Jerosch said. “It’s hard to take in everything, but that will be quite an experience.”
Jerosch and Hom qualified for nationals by winning Eastern sectionals in November in Boxborough over a field of five novice pairs with a score of 113.81 points. They originally planned to return home Thursday. Now they’ll remain in California for more practice and an exhibition with the country’s best skaters.
“I think they’re really excited about that,” Wall said. “They get to miss the snowstorm back east, too.”
Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or
Twitter: GlennJordanPPH
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