In 1997, they set themselves up as possible contenders for the World title early in the season, beating both the World gold and World silver medalist Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov, and Mandy Woetzel and Ingo Steuer in fall competitions. They had also gained the necessary side by side triple toes that had prevented them from a higher finish than 3rd place at the previous 2 World Championships. They however lost their form and suffered a last place finish at the Champions Series final in Hamilton, Ontario, and lost their U.S title to Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen. With a chance for the World title after major mistakes by the other top teams they suffered another lackluster outing and dropped to 5th at the 1997 World Figure Skating Championships.