FARRAH MAFFAI East Brunswick’s Alysse Congiusta competes on the balance beam during the Greater Middlesex Conference Gymnastics Championships at Old Bridge High School on Oct. 18.
Like a certain baseball team in The Bronx, the East Brunswick High School girls gymnastics team has made a habit lately of saving its best for last.
Surely there must be something about this time of year that just brings out the best in the Lady Bears as they proved once again last week when they captured their third straight Greater Middlesex Conference championship. But what made the third time even more of a charm was the fact that East Brunswick wasn’t even expected to repeat.
"We actually came in as underdogs at this year’s meet," coach Renee Steup said. "Bishop Ahr was the favorite going in because we had lost to them during the regular season in a pretty close meet a couple of weeks back. So everybody expected them to finish first."
That was East Brunswick’s only loss during a 6-1 campaign. But as championship teams tend to do, the Bears stepped up in the post season and not only won the GMC meet again, but did it in very impressive fashion.
"We won by six points, and in gymnastics that’s huge," Steup said of the Bears’ margin over runner-up Bishop Ahr. "Their best girl broke her foot the night before at her club practice, but besides that, we just had an amazing meet and we would’ve won anyway. We actually didn’t record a fall in any event.
"We had won the past two years and our girls really wanted to ‘three-peat,’ " she added. "They really worked hard the past two weeks and practiced hard on their routines. It was really just pure determination."
Steup wasn’t around for the Bears’ first two championship runs. She had coached gymnastics for two years at Bound Brook High School in central Jersey, and last year was an assistant coach at Piscataway High School where she student taught.
She ended up landing a job as a third-grade teacher at Bowne-Munro School in East Brunswick, and when the local high school was looking for a new head gymnastics coach, Steup was a perfect fit.
"Everyone was so supportive," she said. "The team was fabulous and welcomed me with open arms. It’s a very close-knit team and the girls were excited. Frank Noppenberger, the athletic director, was great and very supportive, and the parents were great, too. It was just a very inviting situation."
Steup inherited a young team which included only two seniors among the 18 girls on the roster.
"The majority of our starting lineup are freshmen and sophomores," Steup pointed out. "So it’s a very young team, but very talented. Talented and determined. They all had something to prove. No one thought going into the season that we could win a third straight championship."
Steup gives a lot of credit for that to her senior co-captains, Seema Singh and Vered Sherman. Both in their fourth year with the team, Singh competes on the uneven bars and floor exercises, while Sherman does the vault and balance beam.
"Their leadership really contributed to our success this season," Steup said. "They started us off strong at the GMC meet and set the tone for the rest of the girls. And after every event they would get the girls together and talk about the next event and what they had to do to keep going strong.
"They were both a part of the last two championship teams, and that helped a lot. The other girls looked up to them."
One such girl was sophomore Diana Koster, who had a big championship meet for the Bears. Koster finished runner-up in the all-around competition while earning a medal in three of the four events, including a second-place finish on vault with a 9.4, the highest individual score on the team in any event all season.
"She really contributed to our win," Steup said. "She’s been strong for us all year, but she definitely stepped up and was ready to go at the GMC meet."
Meanwhile, freshman Alysse Congiusta placed second on beam with an 8.775 and finished fourth in the all-around. Another freshman, Felicia Massaro, had been injured all season and was competing in only her third meet and took fourth place on bars.
"She’s still hurt and is having ankle surgery (this past Monday)" Steup noted. "She really made some sacrifices so she could be out there to help us. She usually does all-around, but just competed in bars and beam. She was too injured to do the other two events."
The surgery probably means the end of Massaro’s season, but as Steup quickly pointed out, "She doesn’t think so."
Another gymnast who came up big was junior Lynne Kersner, who competed in the all-around and placed in both beam and floor.
"She had a great meet," the EBHS coach said.
Sophomore Jody Shaw, a strong performer in floor, and freshman Maria Delgado in vault rounded out a solid starting six which carried the Bears to another league crown.
The next stop for the East Brunswick gymnasts is the sectional meet the first weekend in November.
"Hopefully, things go well there and we can continue on to the states the following weekend," Steup said. "That’s what we’re hoping for."
The winner of each sectional automatically advances to the state meet, but a handful of teams are also invited based on their performance at the sectionals.
"As long as we put out a strong performance, regardless of whether we win or lose, we have a chance to go to the states," Steup said. "I think we have a pretty good chance, too. There are a lot of strong teams out there, but like I said, our team is very determined and has been practicing hard. They can only get better.
"They didn’t do well at the sectionals last year, so I think they have something to prove again," Steup concluded. "It’s hard to think that a team which has won three championships in a row still has something to prove, but these girls won’t rest on their laurels."
Sort of like that baseball team in the Bronx.