Costa Mesa’s Meno and Sand Win Third Consecutive Pairs Title

Despite two falls in two nights, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand of Costa Mesa won their third consecutive pairs title in the U.S. figure skating championships Thursday night at the San Jose Arena.

Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen of Monsey, N.Y., who led after Wednesday night’s short program, performed their freestyle program with fewer errors than the champions. But the judges apparently preferred the more technically complex and artistic program of Meno and Sand, even though she fell on a throw triple salchow. He fell in the short program on a triple toe jump.

“Each title defense gets progressively harder, but we’ll do better at the world championships than we did here,” said Meno, who finished third in the world with Sand last year.

Shelby Lyons and Brian Wells of Colorado Springs, Colo., vaulted into third place in the free skate over Stephanie Stiegler and John Zimmerman IV of Lake Arrowhead. The first three teams probably will be selected for the world championships in March at Edmonton, Canada.