McLaughlin, Brubaker take second straight figure skating pairs title

CLEVELAND - All week long, Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker kept hearing how hard it is to defend a first title.

Little did anyone know.

McLaughlin and Brubaker, who hails from Algonquin, powered their way to a second straight pairs title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Saturday, despite McLaughlin having such a bad case of the flu she considered withdrawing. They made two significant errors, but their strength, speed and charisma were more than enough to edge newcomers Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett.

"There was definitely moments in my program that I thought, 'I can't do this, just let me stop, just let me have a breather, just let me have a trash can,"' McLaughlin said. "But I just kept going. I don't know how I did it, but I got through it and I'm really happy that it's over with."

McLaughlin and Brubaker finished with a score of 178.76. They are the first couple to repeat as U.S. pairs champions since Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman won three straight from 2000-02.

The audience booed when the final standings were posted and Denney and Barrett, who won the short program, were in second despite a clean skate. But the couple was thrilled, likely on their way to the world championships only seven months after they began skating together.

"Our goal was to skate two solid programs, the best that we could," Denney said. "Placing, that would have been a bonus, that would have been just amazing. Being in second and going to worlds, I don't know if it's sunk in yet."

Meryl Davis and Charlie White won their first ice dance title, overwhelming the rest of the field in the process. They swept all three segments of the dance competition.

McLaughlin and Brubaker are only in their third season but are already considered the best hope to end the United States' medal drought in pairs - no American team has medaled at the Olympics since 1988 - and it's easy to see why. Their speed and power would give any hockey player a run for his money, and they don't take their feet off the gas for a second of their 41/2-minute program.

Yet they have the charisma and expression that makes pairs so appealing when done right. Skating to "West Side Story," they punctuated every high note of their music with movement. They channeled the Jets and the Sharks perfectly, too, so much so that the Broadway producers might want to keep them in mind if they ever need fill-ins.

"We felt like last season, we skated clean programs but really hadn't dove into getting into the character of the program, the choreography and the transitions," Brubaker said. "That's one thing we really tried to get into this year. We have a long way to go, but judging by the scores we've gotten and the component scores, we're heading in the right direction."

They're not just pretty faces, though.

Their opening triple twist set the tone for the whole program. She launched into the air like a firecracker, and got such great air even the X-Games set would be impressed. They also did a huge throw triple loop and an intricate lift in the last 10 seconds of the program, barely breaking a sweat when most teams are just trying to stay on their feet.

But their solo elements gave them trouble. They both botched their side-by-side triple toe loops, with her falling and him stepping out of the landing. He also appeared to have trouble with the second jump of their side-by-side triple salchow-double toe combination.

Still, it was an impressive - and memorable - performance, and McLaughlin practically sprinted away from Brubaker when their music ended, grinning and pumping her fists.

"I was ecstatic last year when I won, but I realized at that moment I wasn't going to go down without fighting," said Brubaker, who is named after that Rockne. "I knew it was going to be a fight ... but I knew I wasn't going to go down without trying."

After acknowledging the crowd, they skated over to hug Brubaker's mother, Monica. It was her birthday Saturday, and Brubaker pulled out a white T-shirt with "Happy B-Day Mom" written in big black letters after he got off the ice.

"My brother and I, we're always very creative young kids and we would always make my mom laugh," Brubaker said. "So she didn't expect it, but she always expects us to do something creative. I thought, 'What better way to wish her a happy birthday than on national TV?"'