By: centraljersey.com
Manville gymnasts Brooke Hoodja and Emma Thompson competed in the Acorn Cup Invitational hosted by Meetrunners, Oct. 17.
The meet was held at Gymland, the home of Arena Gymnastics in Hamilton. Emma and Brook, fourth-grade students at Roosevelt School, are members of the Paramount Gymnastics Level 5 and Level 6 gymnastics teams respectively.
Emma, did well in her second meet of the season. In a field of 23 gymnasts, she placed fourth on vault with a score of 8.6, which was an improvement over her effort at last week’s meet.
"Vault has always been an event that I’ve struggled with and I have been working really hard to improve it," Emma said. "When they announced my name for an award, I was excited and shocked at the same time."
Emma was also able to capture the third place award for her uneven parallel bars performance. In this meet, Emma also added a new element for the first time to her bar routine and scored a respectable 9.3 for her effort.
Finally, with a combined score of 35.75, she was awarded fourth-place in the all-around competition.
Paramount’s level 5 team handled the competition well and was awarded the third-place finish in the team competition.
Brooke Hoodja, a level 6 gymnast had a fifth-place finish on the beam with a score of 8.85. Brooke had a good meet all around, even with very tough scoring.
"This was one of my best meets so far," Brooke said. " I felt comfortable on every event."
Paramount’s level 6 team finished third in a field of eight teams.
Brooke and Emma’s next meet will be a sectional competition, set for Nov. 6 and Nov. 7, in which both gymnasts hope to score well enough to qualify for the NJ State Gymnastics competition.

