B-CC Wins Tri-Meet by Narrow Margins
By Susan McClure
The story of last night's gymnastics meet between the hosting Walter Johnson Wildcats, the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Barons and the Gaithersburg Trojans might well have been the absence of key members from each of the teams. But in the end, the depth of BCC's talent saved the day for them, and they won with a team score of 166.55. Walter Johnson finished 2nd with a team score of 162.8, and Gaithersburg placed 3rd with 119.25.
Entering the meet with 3 of her top scoring gymnasts out, BCC coach Dana Creager confessed to being a little nervous about her team's chances for a victory. Star senior Ebony Walters, suffering from a stress fracture in her shin, is likely out for the remainder of the season. However the strong core of 5 gymnasts that competed all-around tonight-Allegra Barnes, Stephanie Golob, Lydia Marks, Michaela Socolof and Julie Siegel-showed that BCC can more than compensate for her absence.
Coach Creager saw an up-side to the situation. "It gave the other girls a chance to compete, and luckily they had all been training routines." With the exception of the missing girls and one other member, the entire BCC team competed last night.
Walter Johnson had to contend with their star junior Shannon Mitchell's ankle injury that prevented her competing on anything other than beam. Despite that, Walter Johnson topped their previous team score of 142 by over 20 points, a remarkable margin of improvement. Coach Ursula Bright credits sophomore Emily Newcomb with a large part of the difference: she was unable to compete in the last meet but her all-around score of 34.35 won tonight's meet. In addition, Coach Bright said that they have finalized routines for all the newcomers, and added difficulty on several events.
Gaithersburg, despite having a huge roster of 26 girls, lacks depth and the absence of junior captain Sara Toppe and Chelsea Geliske hurt them badly on bars and floor, events in which they only had four competitors when the top fives scores count. Alexa Brown, Zoe Hedquist and Shanelle Wint competed for the first time ever last night and acquitted themselves well.
Gaithersburg had to count 3 squat-through vaults on that event and was rapidly outpaced by Walter Johnson and BCC who had front handspring vaults at a minimum. BCC's Lydia Marks and Gaithersburg's Mayra Saavedra both performed full twisting front handspring vaults to finish 1st and 2nd, respectively.
All teams struggled on bars, Gaithersburg with only 4 gymnasts competing, Walter Johnson and BCC both having to count routines with falls. Though lacking full difficulty, Guillemette Bodenreider of Walter Johnson performed a beautifully clean routine to win the event with a score of 8.5, followed closely by her teammate Lucy Martin with 8.4.
Beam was the highlight for Gaithersburg, with their highest event score of 35.6. Although they need to increase their difficulty, their routines were solid without any major breaks. While scoring much higher overall, both BCC (44.0) and Walter Johnson (41.0) had to counts scores from routines with falls. BCC's Michaela Socolof won beam with a score of 9.2 for her rock solid routine that included a nice flight series of cartwheel to roundoff. Although Julie Siegel fell on the same combination, her routine also included a very pretty split jump to straddle jump combination. Shannon Mitchell of Walter Johnson performed an oddly short although beautiful routine notable for a solid and fluid front aerial.
Highlights from floor included BCC's Stephanie Golob's 1st tumbling pass of roundoff, backhandspring, full twisting layout, and her gutsy completion of her double-somie pass despite an awkward landing out of a whip-back. For Walter Johnson, freshman Grace Lesau performed a routine with pretty dance, including a nice switch-split leap to tour jete, and clean tumbling to win the event. Teammate Guillemette Bodenreider, although finishing only 5th on floor, did the highest and most technically correct back tucks of the night.
Coach Bright of Walter Johnson was pleased with her team's performance, particularly the huge improvement in their team score. "We're still working on getting the nerves out, taking our time. It's a slow process because we only practice a few hours at a time, a few times a week." Coach Courtney McHenry hopes to improve her team's performance on beam and intends to work more on the basics. Shockingly, she revealed that their performance on bars suffers because Gaithersburg's gym does not have a set of uneven bars, meaning that her team cannot practice that event unless they pay to practice at private clubs. Let's hope that Montgomery county will rectify that situation, especially given the large number of enthusiastic gymnasts on their team.
AWARDS
Vault
1st- Lydia Marks, BCC-8.7
2nd- Mayra Saavedra, Gaithersburg-8.65
3rd- Grace Lesau, Walter Johnson and Julie Siegel, BCC-8.6
Bars
1st-Guillemette Bodenreider, Walter Johnson-8.5
2nd- Lucy Martin, Walter Johnson-8.4
3rd- Julie Siegel, BCC-8.3
Beam
1st-Michaela Socolof, BCC-9.2
2nd- Allegra Barnes, BCC and Shannon Mitchell, Walter Johnson-9.0
3rd- Emily Newcomb, Walter Johnson -8.9
Floor
1st- Grace Lesau, Walter Johnson -8.9
2nd- Stephanie Golob, BCC -8.8
3rd- Emily Newcomb, Walter Johnson -8.75
ALL-AROUND
1st- Emily Newcomb, Walter Johnson -34.35
2nd- Julie Siegel, BCC-34.2
3rd- Michaela Socolof, BCC-33.9
