Rockne Brubaker, Keauna McLaughlin win U.S. pairs title

Rockne Brubaker quickly realized the U.S. championship was becoming the hardest competition he and partner Keauna McLaughlin ever had during a three-season partnership marked by relentless success.

“All week, everyone has been telling me you can win five years in a row, but the second one is the hardest, with all the added pressure, and on top of that Keauna had the flu most of the week,” Brubaker said.

McLaughlin was coughing so frequently by Saturday afternoon it left her wondering whether she could finish a 4 1/2 -minute program with two demanding elements in the final 10 seconds.

“There were definitely moments where I thought, ‘I can’t do this, just let me have a breather, just let me stop, just let me have a trash can to cough into,’ ” McLaughlin said.

“I don’t know how, but I got through it.”

Despite nearly spitting the bit with two flawed jumping passes early in the free skate final, McLaughlin, 16, of Tarzana, and Brubaker, 22, of Algonquin, Ill., hung together to prevent Floridians Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett from becoming perhaps the unlikeliest national pairs champions ever.

Denney, 16, and Barrett, 24, have skated together barely six months since resuming a partnership that had lasted only four months before a 1 1/2 -year break when she moved to Colorado.

Now they are expected to claim the second available spot on the U.S. team for the March world championships at Staples Center.

Two-time champions Rena Inoue and John Baldwin of Santa Monica took third, their seventh consecutive podium finish.

Brubaker and McLaughlin, first to win consecutive titles since 2002, trailed by less than half a point after the short program and won by 2.59 on the strength of what judges thought was higher overall skating quality.

The result elicited boos from a crowd that stood to applaud Denney and Barrett for a performance with no major errors.

“First would have been great,” Denney said, “but second is awesome.”

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phersh@tribune.com