GHS students Jenna Lake and Amy Petralia competed against six other schools at a figure skating competition in Stoneham this past Sunday, October 16th. Along with two Manchester Essex students, the team’s skillful twists, twirls, and jumps earned them second overall.

Lake and Petralia, along with MERHS students Kayley Wright and Annabelle Haskell, are the only members of the Essex County High Schools Skating Team. But that doesn’t stop them from being competitive.

“I joined the team last year so I only went to one competition before this one, which was our home one,” said Lake. “But this year, our team got second overall for the whole competition. It was a good time.”

Although they practice separately, they work on the moves in the competition as much as possible so the team can divide them up at the event.

“I have practice three times a week, three hours total,” said Lake. “But we work on everything separately, and then we pick who’s  best at what and put them all together for the competition.”

The Essex County High School skaters compete individually, but are all on different performance levels, so they do not compete against each other. Skaters can be ranked in eight different levels to define their level of talent: Pre-preliminary, preliminary, pre-juvenile, juvenile, intermediate, novice, junior, senior.  Petralia is ranked at pre-juvenile, Lake in juvenile, Haskell in intermediate, and Wright in novice.

Show your support by going to their next competition at Talbot Rink on January 16, 2017.