Brooke Hoodja, Emma Thompson captures medals
Brooke Hoodja, a Roosevelt School 5th grader and a member of the Paramount Gymnastics team, finished 1st all-around at the Rutgers Color Games on Jan. 6.
Brooke had an excellent start on vault. Her score of 9.325, one of her best vaults of the year, got her going.
Her next event to compete was uneven parallel bars. With a season-best score of 9.45, Brooke finished atop the podium.
Coming up to the balance beam, Brooke had confidence and momentum on her side. A nice score of 9.275 and a second-place finish kept her going on to her best meet of the year.
The floor exercise, which is Brooke’s most challenging event, finished the afternoon. Brooke’s score of 9.1 gave her at least a 9 on every event, which is one of Brooke’s goals to accomplish at meets.
Brooke finished with an all-around score of 37.15 and she came home with her first first-place finish in the all-around.
When asked how she felt after the meet, Brooke said she was surprised with her scores and extremely excited to have her best meet ever.
Fellow Paramount Gymnastics team member Emma Thompson, also a 5th grader at Roosevelt School in Manville, competed in her third and final sectional competition.
These competitions are used to allow gymnasts to qualify for the New Jersey state gymnastics championships, which were held at Gymnastics Unlimited in Flemington on Jan. 8. Emma did not need to qualify at this sectional competition as she had earned her qualifying score earlier in the season.
This was not Emma’s strongest meet and she noted that she was disappointed with her performance on all events but bars.
”I just didn’t have a good day,” she said. “It was an early meet and I don’t seem to perform my best in the morning.”
The uneven parallel bars are generally Emma’s best event and she again worked her magic on the set. She came out swinging strong and earned a score of 9.2 for the event which secured her a 2nd place finish.
While her scoring on the other events was not her strongest, she still managed to garner an all-around score of 35.00, which was good enough for a 5th place all-around finish.