The sounds of ice scraping. The jumping, swerving, and gliding along the ice rink. 

This is what junior Ashley Reyes–a competitive ice skater–calls home outside the halls of Riordan.

Ashley began to ice skate when she was 9 years old with her old Girl Scout team.

Currently, she is a part of the San Francisco Synchronized Ice Skating team Tremors and has been for about five years. The team travels and competes representing the Skating Club of San Francisco.

Reminiscing, Ashley stated, “One of my biggest accomplishments in my Tremors career would have to be when my Pre-Juvenile team and I won Gold for 1st place in Wichita, Kansas. All my year’s ice skating with Tremors, my teams have always placed and have gone home with a medal every time.” 

Along with her dozens of medals, she recalls meeting Bay Area ice skating icon Kristi Yamaguchi and being featured in a Wichita video promoting synchronized ice skating as some of her other accomplishments.

For Ashley, ice skating is her passion. “[It’s] my outlet, one of my happy places, my challenge at times, my growth place (where I’ve grown, learned, and improved many things), my balance, my love, teamwork, friendship, confidence, self-motivation, fun, community, support, and more” she stated. 

“Ice skating is a sport I hold dear to my heart and is something I love to do.”

With a busy schedule with lessons beginning at 5:30 a.m., Ashley successfully balances schoolwork and ice skating and applies skills learned on the ice here at Riordan. 

She stated, “Some skills I’ve learned and applied to both Riordan and sports are teamwork, leadership, responsibility, time management, and communication.” 

Moreover, she continued, “An example of good time management on a typical day is when I have a packed schedule and a friend asks for help on homework, projects, school work, tutoring, etc. I am more than happy to help my friends. I make time in my day to help them out.”

Ashley’s friends are very supportive of her. Sofia Tocchini ’23 said, “I think that Ashley’s ice skating facet really showcases how admirable she is. Through her hard work and patience, she has become a very skilled skater, and with that skill has come many victories in the sport. I’m truly proud of her and honored to be able to call her a friend.”

“She has a strong passion for ice skating. With her strong dedication, she is going to perform well in any aspect of this sport whether she wants to continue to do synchronized or pursue solos,” added Justin Samaniego ’22. 

Her teachers at Riordan also commend her hard work as a student-athlete. “I admire her dedication and commitment to bettering herself and sharing her God-given talents with others,” said Religion instructor Joshua Keeney.

“The virtues she learns now will guide her into an even more successful future. I look forward to seeing all she will accomplish while completing her years at Riordan and after her time here.”

Ashley seeks to continue to achieve her goals on the ice. To her Tremors teammates and coaches, she expressed gratitude for “all [their] reminders, advice, motivation, support, coaching, and more.”

 Finally, she invites others to ice skate. “I encourage anyone and everyone to try it out, go ice skating with friends, fall, have fun, laugh, etc. Who knows, maybe you might be great at it for your first time, but who would know if you don’t give it a shot?”