The Williams Lake Skating Club glided off to a promising start to the 2014/15 season in Kamloops during the weekend at the Super Series Autumn Leaves competition.
Eight skaters from the WLSC attended the meet — Dawn Henley, Amanda Lane, Alanna Walters, Jade Johnson, Emma Penner, Annaliese Hunter-Owega, Georgia Jacobson and Ryanne Jones — which was the club’s first competitive event of this year’s skating season.
WLSC head coach Joanne Macnair said she was happy with the way her skaters performed after having just picked up new skating programs to learn in September.
“I was pleased overall with everything,” Macnair said. “This one [Autumn Leaves] is really popular. You get all the kids from the Coast who are skating year round, and some of our kids have just been on the ice six weeks with new programs.
“It’s a tougher one for us but we seem to gain ground back on [the other clubs] as the season goes on.”
Each of the eight local participants skated free skate programs at the competition.
Henley in the senior silver division, Jacobson in the star two division, Jones in the star two division and Hunter-Owega in the star three division, each skated to silver medals.
Penner, meanwhile, picked up a bronze medal in the star two class.
Johnson was fourth in the star five division, Walters was fifth in the senior bronze class and Lane was seventh in the juvenile division to round out the results for the WLSC.
“[They were] kind of getting the bugs out for the first competition of the year but I was really pleased with all their skates,” Macnair said.
Moving forward, she said, November is shaping up to be a busy month for the club.
Lane is planning to compete at the B.C. Skating Provincials in Prince George from Nov. 6-8, before members of the WLSC travel to White Rock from Nov. 22-23 for the Jingle Blades competition. During the last weekend in November from Nov. 28-30 Macnair added at least 12 of the WLSC’s skaters will participate in Kelowna at the Okanagan Interclub Competition.
“There [at the OIC] some of them will be in more than one event,” she said. “Interpretive, creative, elements and free skate.”