FIGURE SKATING U.S. MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS : Landing Seven Triples, Davis Wins

Say hello to Scott Davis, goodby, at least temporarily, to Todd Eldredge and welcome back to Rudy Galindo. As for Mark Mitchell, he didn’t win the title that was supposed to be his, but neither did he lose the one he had as “The Hard-Luck Kid from Boston.”

Davis, the son of a high school football coach from Great Falls, Mont., has been competing in relative anonymity the last two years, but he emerged Saturday to cast a tall shadow in the U.S. figure skating championships at the America West Arena.

Skating his athletic freestyle program to music from “West Side Story,” Davis, 20, earned first-place marks from all nine judges to win the men’s championship and a berth, along with runner-up Mitchell, in the March 10-14 World Championships.

“This is more than I could have asked for,” said Davis, who has progressed from his national junior championship in 1990 to eighth, fourth and then first in three senior competitions.

Michael Chack of Brick Township, N.J., was third, followed by Aren Nielsen of Kansas City and Galindo, of San Jose, who was a two-time national champion in pairs with Kristi Yamaguchi. When she decided to devote all of her time to singles, he chose to do the same. But while she rose to become the 1992 Olympic champion, he is only now breaking through.

Eldredge appears to be going in the opposite direction. The son of a commercial fisherman from South Chatham, Mass., he appeared to be the United States’ hope for the future after winning the national championship at 18 in 1990 and repeating in ’91. But he fell from third after Friday’s technical program to sixth overall.

Asked if Eldredge is at a crossroads in his career, his coach, Richard Callaghan, said: “Yeah, probably. I don’t know what the answer is.”

For now, Davis is the new kid on the ice. He turned down a $16,000 academic scholarship from the University of Puget Sound three years ago to train at Colorado Springs, Colo., with Coach Kathy Casey, and Davis said Saturday he has no second thoughts. Landing seven of the eight triple jumps he planned and displaying promise artistically, he won over not only the judges but also the crowd of 7,803, which gave him a standing ovation.

Mitchell had to wait for the crowd’s enthusiasm to wane and a television commercial to end before he skated. He did not blame the delay for his sub-par performance. After his third place in the nationals and fifth in the World Championships in 1992, he was the favorite here. But he is accustomed to disappointment, having been passed over for berths in the 1990 World Championships and 1992 Olympics.

“One of my friends likes to call me ‘The Hard-Luck Kid from Boston,’ ” he said. “She thinks it’s pretty funny. I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to give up that title.’ ”