Two Traverse City natives helped Michigan State University win silver medals earlier this month at the United States Synchronized Team Championships.
Brynn Dilloway and Jessica Borowicz and the rest of the MSU team competed against 14 other top college teams in the nation March 1-3 in Lake Placid, New York.
The accomplishment was a long way from a fifth place finish the team garnered XXX years ago when Borowicz joined the club as a freshman.
The next year, following the trend at the collegiate level, the club hired a professional coach. Cheryl Karlon quickly upgraded their routines and reworked the program, giving the team an immediate payoff for their investment.
“Last year we got third and were really excited — we had no idea we were going to get that,” said Borowicz, a 1999 graduate of Traverse City Central High School who is studying pre-med. “We were really happy with it.”
Jumping to second place this year took the team months of hard work, starting just after tryouts last September. The team drilled their 4.5-minute routine, which is set to a classic rock medley, countless times at their thrice-weekly on-ice practices. Off ice, they cross-trained two days a week by dancing, kick-boxing and ballet.
As the season progressed, they received a number of first place finishes at meets and tournaments around the Midwest, a hint of things to come.
Heading to Lake Placid, they knew they faced the powerhouses of college-level synchronized skating: University of Michigan, Bowling Green, Western Michigan, Miami University of Ohio and Princeton. In a sport invented in Michigan and dominated by Michigan-based teams, the Michigan State skaters had their work cut out for them. Fortunately they had seen and competed against these teams all season and knew what they had to do.
Some of the teams they competed against have varsity status and thus more resources, such as money and ice time from their schools. On a club team like MSU, the members pay for everything themselves, make all their own travel arrangements and even had one team member’s mom sew up their costumes.
“Because we are a club sport, it is harder for us to compete against the others that are funded by their schools,” said Borowicz, who has been skating for 10 years.
Overcoming these hurdles to place second was especially satisfying.
“It was really exciting to be in Lake Placid and see how far we’ve come,” said Brynn Dilloway, a 2000 graduate of Central High School who is studying psychology. “We’ve really been pushing so hard to come this far.”
Both Dilloway and Borowicz began skating with the Twin Bays Skating Club and both were founding members of the club’s synchronized skating team a few years ago. Both had already competed in two- or three-person routines and were excited at the chance to skate with a larger group in an intricate, demanding routine.
“The most challenging thing about synchronized skating is that when you move it affects the whole team,” said Dilloway, who has been skating for 11 years. “When one person is off or a couple of people are off, that’s when you get the points off.”
Both skaters found that moving from a traditionally solo competitive sport to skating on a team had a number of benefits, including a ready-made group of friends.
“One of the things I find most rewarding is the friendships,” said Borowicz, who chose to attend MSU in part because of its synchronized skating team. “Our team was really close this year and our practices were a social hour on ice.”
Despite the occasionally rowdiness or inattention of the team because of their chatter (even while practicing their routine), Borowicz said their coach turned their camaraderie to an advantage.
“The coach and others told us that our team was the friendliest one,” she added. “Coach told us to let the judges know we were happy, that this was fun for us.”
Brynn Dilloway, left, and Jessica Borowicz, former Traverse City residents and skaters with Twin Bays Skating Club, were among the members of the Michigan State University Synchronized Skating Team that placed second at the United States Synchronized Team Championships in Lake Placid, N.Y.