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Good Night for Nick & Viktorija

Last night at Volunteer State was a great night for Nick Cheremukhin & Viktorija.  They won both the Open Professional Smooth and Ballroom. 

First up was the Ballroom – an event with 3 high-quality entries.  Nick & Viktorija placed 1T,2,1,1T,1 in a close 3-way decision.  The runners-up were Sergiy Samchynskyy & Yuliya Besarab who placed 1T,1,2,3,2 and 3rd were Martin & Liene Reinbold 3,3,3,1T,3.  Nick & Viktorija are comparative newcomers to the Ballroom field so this was an impressive win against two high-quality opponents.

In the Smooth, their more accustomed style, we felt they were easy winners and indeed they had a huge majority of 1st places in all dances although they did get a couple of scores lower.  Comfortably 2nd in all dances were Mark Short & Alyssa Kark.  A ‘Rule 11’ separated 3rd and 4th places with the result falling to Dennis Woods & Amber Reich (4,3,4,3) over Dave Hannigan & Maggie Toth (3,4,3,4).  5th in all dances were Jimmy Mulligan & Dani Atkins and 6th Michael & Suzi DeSante.  The event started with a semifinal.

The Open Pro Rhythm finished in the same way as the Rising Star the night before.  Maks Lototskyy & Sarah Haworth were once again the winners and they won all dances.  They had the majority of 1st places in all dances, but swing was a close call as they had 7 first places to the 6 of runners up, Erwin & Iwona Rybccynski who were 2nd in all dances.  3rd were Christopher Wayne & Juanita Simanekova (3,3,4,3,3);  4th Rex & Rachel Jones (4,4,3,4,4) and 5th, Blake Glaskox & Kelsey Medeiros.

Volunteer State 2014

The Volunteer State, a Global Spectrum event, is underway right now at the Lowes Vanderbilt in Nashville.  The hotel has undergone quite a facelift since last year – the whole bar area is new and the guest rooms have all been upgraded.  The ballroom with its chandeliers is very elegant as always.

Over the first 2 days the pro-ams have completed their events in Smooth, Ballroom and Latin.  The bronze divisions were the largest.

It was a good day for the gentlemen students and teacher Shalene Archer in the Ballroom as her students won 2 of the Open Scholarships.  Ming Wang won all dances in the A and Rick Brooks won the B (1,1T,1,2,3).  2nd in the A was Wende Stambough w/ Ben Ermis (2,2,2,2,3) and 3rd was Danielle Mege w/ Jari Muller (3,3,3,3,2).  In the B Karen Weber w/ Maks Lototskyy was 2nd (3,1T,2,1,1), Cindy Blanchard w/ Tibor Kerekes was 3rd (2,3,3,3,2) and Jackie Johnson w/ Ben Ermis was 4th.

In the Open B Latin Scholarship Kush Smith w/ Tibor Kerekes was the winner in all dances.  Jan McElroy w/ Andriy Velychko was 2nd (3,2,2,2,4), Marguerite Daniels w/ Erik Pali took 3rd (4,3,4,3,2) and Anna Prusinski w/ Robert Surowiec was 4th (2,4,3,4,3).

The evening before Alla Neystadt w/ Eric Pali won all dances in the Open B Smooth Scholarship.  Wende Stambaugh w/ Ben Ermis was 2nd in all dances, Bonni Silfer w/ Jeremy Gatlin was 3rd and Charlie Carboneau w/ Kelly Bartlett was 4th.  

There was also a “Solo Scholarship” that attracted over 20 entries. The winner of this was Talia Wong w/ Krisztian Timar.

All of the Rising Star Pro divisions were held on Friday night (although there were no entries in the Latin.)  The largest event was the Smooth with 6 entries.  The Winners, all dances, were Dennis Woods w/ Amber Reich.  2nd in all dances were Dave Hannigan w/ Maggie Toth and 3rd were Jimmy Mulligan & Dani Atkins.  Jimmy & Dani also won the Open Showdance.

Maks Lototskyy & Sarah Haworth won all dances in the Rhythm.  2nd in all were Erwin & Iwona Rybczynski and 3rd in all Christopher Wayne & Juanita Simanekova.

There was only 1 entry in the Ballroom – Nick Cheremukhin & Viktorija.