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MANVILLE: Gymnasts earn wins at final meet

   Manville fourth grade students Brooke Hoodja and Emma Thompson ended their gymnastics seasons with wins at the Pink Invitational in Downington, Pennsylvania. For both girls, this was an exciting meet to compete in because for each score that they obtained of 9.0 or higher, a one dollar donation would be made to breast cancer research.
   This was a large meet that was spanned the course of three days. Thompson, along with her Paramount level 5 teammates, competed first.
   Thompson’s goal for this meet was to score a 9.0 or higher on as many events as she could since she knew money would be donated to breast cancer research. Having had cancer affect her family, she was hopeful that she would be able to aid in the fight against this horrible disease. Thompson started her day on bars, which has been her best event this season and scored a 9.55 and a first-place title.
   After bars, her group rotated to beam, where in an unfortunate pass, Thompson fell on her cartwheel. Next up was floor, where she performed a clean routine that scored a 9.275 and was good enough for fifth place. Her final event of the morning was vault. Emma performed two solid vaults for a score of 9.0 and a fourth-place finish. In addition to her individual event medals, Emma scored a 36.50 which placed her third in the all-around competition.
   Paramount’s level 5 team took first place in the team competition bringing tears of joy to their coach’s eyes whose family has suffered a tremendous loss due to breast cancer. Thompson is now training level 6 and is excited to be learning so many new and challenging skills.
   As this was the last meet of the season, Hoodja wanted to perform well, too. She did just that, finishing in first place on the vault with a score of 9.375, her highest vault score of the season.
   On bars, Hoodja scored an 8.85, which was good enough to finish in fourth place. On the balance beam, she finished with an 8.65, although not her best routine , her score was good for a fifth place finish.
   Hoodja had an impressive floor routine scoring a 9.0 and finishing in third place. Her all-around score of 35.875 was her highest all-around finish of the year, putting her on the podium with a third-place finish.
   She said that she was very happy with her finish and that of her teams, which finished in third place.Hoodja is now training at level 7, which is the first year of optional gymnastics. She is excited to be working on new skills which will be used when she gets to choreograph her own routines.
    Hoodja’s coach Valerie Bruno commented that, “I was so glad that Brooke was able to deliver her best performance of the year on vault. She is such a hard worker and is a pleasure to coach.”