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MANVILLE: Gymnasts give top performances

   Manville students Emma Thompson and Brooke Hoodja continue to have success as their gymnastics season draws to a close. Both girls compete for Paramount Gymnastics located in Hillsborough.
   On February 18 and 19 the girls traveled to Danbury, Connecticut. to participate in the Team Challenge Gymnastics meet hosted by Gymnastics Revolution. The meet was the girls next to last competition of their season and was held at Western Connecticut State University’s O’Neill Center. This was a very large meet with approximately 1,400 athletes, ranging from levels 4 through 10, competing over the course of the weekend.
   Emma, a level 5 gymnast, competed first and put forth her strongest performance of the year.
   She started her meet rotation on the balance beam where she put together a solid routine that earned her a 9.075 and a second-place finish. After beam, she moved onto floor which traditionally has not been a high scoring event for Emma. In this meet, however, things really came together for her and she put up her highest score of the season, a 9.625. This in fact is the highest score she has received on any event this season and earned her first place on floor.
   ”I was excited to see my score because I have been working really hard to improve my floor routine,” she said. After all of the gymnasts completed their floor routines, the Paramount group moved to vault. Emma earned an 8.9 which put in her fifth place on this event. Buoyed by her floor score and wanting to overcome her lower score on the vault, Emma concentrated on her last event, the uneven parallel bars.
   Bars has traditionally been her strongest event and she did not disappoint performing a clean routine for a score of 9.425 which earned her a first-place finish. In addition to placing on all individual events, Emma secured the highest all-around score across all age groups in her session and earned the first place all-around with an overall score of 37.025. This score is a personal best for her this season.
   Kyra Lysyj, Emma’s coach, said, “Emma’s dedicated hard work continues to help her shine. She had another fantastic meet and I am so proud of her.”
   Brooke, a level 6 gymnast, placed in two events at the Team Challenge. Brooke’s second rotation took her to vault and this is where she really shined. On vault, Brooke scored 9.3, her highest vault score of the season. Her efforts on vault earned her a third-place medal.
   ”I was happy to bring my vault score up after I was struggling the last couple weeks,” she said.
   After vault, Brooke moved onto the uneven parallel bars. On bars, Brooke completed a clean routine with no falls and was awarded a score of 9.275. This score was strong enough to earn her a sixth-place finish during awards.
   Paramount’s level 5 team took second place.
   In addition, Paramount Gymnastics won the Mega Team award. Teams with more than 41 gymnasts competing in the event are eligible to compete in the Mega team competition. In this competition, 21 scores count towards the total in determining which team is awarded the Mega Team award.
   Next up for the girls is the third annual Pink Invitational gymnastics meet hosted by AJS Pancott Gymnastics. This meet helps to raise funds to support the programs and initiatives of Unite for HER to help women with breast cancer and their families. This will be the final meet of their 2010-2011 season.