PATCH WHIZ KID OF THE WEEK: Alyssa Mendelsohn

Whiz Kids' Name: Alyssa Mendelsohn

Whiz Kid's Age: 14

Whiz Kid's School: Bryn Mawr School

Whiz Kid's Accomplishment: Synchronized figure skater follows her dream, goes the distance.

Whiz Kid's Key to Awesomeness: "You have to be all the way in or all the way out," she said.

Alyssa Mendelsohn was working hard on learning the moves of a figure skater in summer 2008. The Pikesville resident often went to the nearby Northwest Ice Rink to practice the skating and spins.

But that’s when everything changed.

Northwest suddenly shut down, and Alyssa wasn’t sure what to do about skating. She didn’t know where to go to remain on the ice, or if she’d even do it anymore.

A friend  suggested Alyssa should go to the Ice World rink in Harford County and take a look at the synchronized skating program there.

Alyssa listened to her friend’s advice and quickly fell in love with synchronized skating, which is much like figure skating, except that there are 8-20 people on the ice simultaneously performing a program. Simply put, it’s very much like figure skating, except with more people.

She joined the Chesapeake Synchronized Skating and skates with its Chesapeake Sailors, a 17-skater team (16 on the ice at once plus one alternate), which competes in the intermediate division of U.S. Figure Skating events.

“It’s the first sport I’ve ever been able to stick with,” said Alyssa, now a 14-year-old ninth-grader at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. “I enjoy the creative outlet, I enjoy turning on the music and getting out on the ice.”

Joining this team took a lot of work and quite a commitment. She needs to go to Ice World—approximately 35 minutes away—about four times a week for various types of practices. Alyssa will regularly do homework in the car and whatever it takes to fit everything into her schedule.

“This is part of who she is right now,” said her mother, Rochelle Mendelsohn. “She loves it. We do what it takes to support her.”

That includes making a number of long drives. The Mendelsohns made the approximately 8 1/2-hour trek to Lake Placid, NY, last week for a competition that could have earned the team a spot in the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships next month.

Unfortunately, the team fell short.

The team skated a 3 1/2-minute program, plus a one-minute warm-up, on the ice where the United States men's hockey team scored its famous upset of the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympic Games.

Being in a competition doesn’t bother Alyssa much.“It’s so much easier doing synchronized skating than figure skating because the eyes aren’t all (only) on you,” she said. “I just don’t feel all the pressure.”

She’s been able to skate in a number of different places outside of Baltimore and has to work on juggling the commitments for high school and skating, but she would like to remain on the ice through high school and into college.

But Alyssa is careful in her planning. “You have to be all the way in or all the way out,” she said. “I’m taking it a year at a time.”