Moose Jaw’s Raine Eberl and partner Emi Swanson were hoping for a higher finish, but are still coming away pleased with how their first trip to the Skate Canada National Championship went last week.

Eberl and Swanson finished seventh in the novice pairs division at nationals in Vancouver.

“We were feeling really good after our short program, being in fourth place, and then it’s too bad that we couldn’t hold onto it for the long, but it was such a good experience, it was so different than other competitions that we’ve been to, so overall we’re happy that we were there,” said Eberl after wrapping up at nationals.

As Eberl said, the duo put together an impressive short program on Tuesday that had them sitting in fourth place after scoring a 38.49, but they stumbled a bit in the free skate, finishing with an overall score of 95.82, which had them in seventh place.

Eberl didn’t know if it was nerves or just a lack of focus that led to their drop-off.

“We rushed a few things and that’s kind of led us to where we ended up,” said Eberl. “It always takes one competition to learn, whether you make mistakes or not, to do better next time, so that’s what we learned and hopefully we’ll do better next year.”

This event was the first taste of nationals for the Saskatchewan pairs team and it served as a good learning experience for what it takes to compete at the top level.

“The whole environment and atmosphere was different,” said Eberl. “Everyone had a little bit more adrenaline, everybody wanted to do well and it was just different, it was more like skating at an international event than a national event.

“We learned a lot and we got a lot of good feedback from people there, so now we just start prepping for next year.”

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