USA Climbing is the national governing body for the sport of competition climbing. Within USAC, there are nine divisions that encompass different geographic areas. Division 6 includes: North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Michigan, most of Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, and is home to thousands of young climbers.

To be eligible to compete in a USAC Divisional Championship event, athletes must first compete in a series of qualifying events and earn their place at a regional event; and at this event they must finish in the top of their category. This process whittles the field down to roughly 2,000 athletes nationwide — across all categories.

For this event, each climber was tested on four separate boulders (climbing challenges), which are intense, full-body puzzles. These boulders are designed to be tricky to figure out and physically demanding. Do you push, pull, press, grab, jump, or maybe even skip-hop-catch-and swing? And all of this mental and physical gymnastics has to be achieved in only four minutes (per climb) and with no support. That’s right; no coaching.

The boulders were hard, so hard that some climbers were not able to score on them at all. However, the Warren athletes were successful. Four of them scored on all of their boulders. Criswell, Nina Harrington and Eloise Harrington not only scored on all of their boulders, they were also very close to topping a few of their boulders — which is all they would’ve needed to advance to the final round. White flashed — completed on her first try — Boulder 3, which was a very complex challenge with several “no hands” moves. She scored on all four boulders and her scores were enough to advance to the final round.

Lily White

Criswell finished 14th, White finished 15th, Eloise Harrington finished 19th, Nina Harrington finished 23rd and Miller finished 26th

“This was our most successful season so far. Prior to this year, Lily White was our only climber to qualify for this event. We are so proud of these young athletes,” Dana Harrington said. “Their hard work and success has inspired our community and we have other, strong athletes with their eyes on next season. Next year is going to be great.”

Eloise Harrington

Elodie Criswell

Coleman Miller