State Meet | No trophy for tumblers at state

(A slideshow of the meet can be seen here.)

TACOMA – The Bainbridge gymnastics team showed a lot of improvement, but narrowly missed out on a trophy at the 1A/2A/3A state meet at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall over the weekend.

The Spartans placed fifth with a season-high score of 161.325 – 3.125 points behind Auburn Mountainview for fourth.

Despite missing out on placing (the top four teams get a trophy), head coach Cindy Guy said she was more than happy with the team’s performance.

“I thought they did great,” she said. “They had great team spirit. I would have liked to get fourth, but fifth at state is OK.”

Guy said the team’s start on the floor exercise was tough. Though the Spartans scored 43.85 points for the event, both Guy and senior co-captain Adrienne Palay felt the scores were lower than they should have been.

The team rebounded with a solid performance on the vault and posted its best score all season on the bars. Rachel Kaminer posted a state personal best score of 7.425.

It was the beam event where the team stood out, with three gymnasts falling just once off the beam.

“I thought it went really smooth,” Guy said. “Everyone went for their jumps or leaps.

“I told them, ‘You gotta go for it,’” she continued. “Don’t wimp out on your skills.”

There was no one in the hall more surprised than Palay when it was announced she had qualified for the individual finals on Saturday in the balance beam.

“I was not expecting that at all,” she said. “Honestly it was out of the question for me – like I won’t even think about it.”

Palay said it was the first time she completed her beam routine at state with no falls.

She became the first gymnast to qualify for an individual event since Marie Welsh won the uneven parallel bars and vault title at the 2007 meet.

“I felt this routine was very solid,” Palay said. “I was pleased with it.”

Palay finished 11th in the individual standings on Saturday with a score of 8.75.

“Our goal was to break 160,” Palay said. “We got 161. We did the absolute best we could and we knew it. We’re really proud of ourselves.”

The team will lose Palay and Anne Schwartz to graduation, but Guy said the Spartans will be solid again next year.

“We’ll reload,” she said. “We’ve got some great kids coming in.”

 

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