2012 SCS REGIONALS.

SCS Regionals for 2012 was this past May 12th and it was held at the Stone Gardens gym in Bellevue, Washington. In the 5 years that Sidney has been climbing, Stone Gardens has never hosted any event that was a Regionals or higher, so this was a first. On the plus side, the gym is very new, clean and has good viewing areas. On the minus side, I would be scoring so the stress level goes up a bit and I don't get to see all the kids climb.

A little different this year was the climbing format. Instead of the usual 2 Qualifier routes for the 1st session and 1 Final route for the finalists in a 2nd session, we did 3 climbs per group with just 1 session for each category. As a parent, I like this format because all the kids get to do 3 climbs. Plus, you don't have to wait around for another session to climb a Finals route. It's basically you climb and then you're done with Sport. On the negative side, the energy in the building was definitely lower than when you have a Finals session. When you watch a Finals session, the tension naturally gets ramped up because it's do or die and you know where everyone stands in the category that you're following. Like most things, there are pros and cons for each format. So looking at it from the perspective of a climbing fan, I definitely prefer the 2 session format because I like the excitement of watching Finals.

Counting Sidney, there were 11 girls in the FYC category. Since Melina Costanza was a Continental Champion, there would be 8 invites to Divisionals instead of the usual 7 invites. So, barring a climbing catastrophe, Sidney would be moving on to Divisionals.........but in what place?

I didn't take any video or pictures of this event or still have the score sheet anymore, so all of this is from memory. What I know for sure is that Sidney and her 3 best friends on the team took the top 4 spots for FYC. Makenna Graham flashed the first two routes with her usual precision. The 3rd route she fell about 1/3 of the way up on a power move/lock off that is definitely not one of her strengths but it was good enough for 4th place. Congrats to her as it was her best placing at any comp that was Regionals or higher! Cierra Graham flashed the first two climbs with ease and fell halfway up on the 3rd climb at the 1st crux. She may have moved through that section a bit quickly but she was solidly in 3rd place. Melina crushed the first 2 climbs and steadily made quick work of the 3rd climb. She flashed it and made it look pretty easy. Sidney flashed 1 and 2 just like the other 3 girls. I fear I may have jinxed her before her 3rd climb because the head route setter asked me if she would want to do a Superfinal and I told him she probably would. We both just assumed that Sidney would flash the route. Well, during Sidney's final climb, he started tweaking a FJR route to get it ready and sure enough, Sidney fell off of a sloper 2 holds from the finish. The top 6 placings all ended up being VW teammates. They were Laili Couper-6th, Piper Boss-5th, Makenna-4th, Cierra-3rd, Sidney-2nd and Melina-1st.

Speed was run after the Sport climbing session. Sorry to give it short shrift but it was literally a hold ladder for the C and D categories. Basically, Sidney went really fast and finished in 1st place. Miriam Timson did bounce back from an early fall in her Sport session to come in 2nd place and Laili showed some flashes of what was to come at Speed Nationals by finishing 3rd if memory serves me correctly. Melina, Cierra and Makenna all received invites to the Divisional for Speed, too.

Congratulations to Melina again, as this was the 2nd year in a row where she took 1st place in Sport at our SCS Regional. Sidney took it in stride since it WAS her best friend that beat her. Sidney and I are quite superstitious, so we took this as a very good omen. After Melina beat her last year at this event, Sidney (she skipped Divisionals) went on to place 3rd in Sport and 1st in Speed at the 2011 SCS Youth Nationals as a first year in her category. Hopefully a similar scenario would be repeated at this year's National but first she had to get through the upcoming Divisional in Oregon.