First-year programs aren’t supposed to do what the Colts Neck gymnastics team did Saturday, win Shore Conference (SC) championships.
Michelle Silverstone’s Cougars completed one of the most sensational debut seasons Saturday at Brick Memorial High School, outscoring established programs like Red Bank Catholic (RBC) and Marlboro en route to the Shore Conference Gymnastics Championships.
“It’s hard to put into words, we’re floored,” said Silverstone.
If the Cougars were floored by their Shore Conference championship, the rest of the conference was down for the count.
Colts Neck’s 109.95 topped previous champions RBC (107.725) and Marlboro (107.05), who were second and third.
“The girls were so consistent,” noted Silverstone. “We only had one fall the entire meet.”
Although Colts Neck was the top seed based on a team’s best, an accumulated three-meet average, RBC was looked at as the team to beat based on its dual meet win over Colts Neck.
But it was that close loss that convinced Silverstone that her team was the one to beat at the conference championships.
“Having seen RBC, I knew we could beat them if we upgraded and revamped some things in our routines,” she pointed out.
Colts Neck had the added edge of going into the meet with the highest score of the season, 110.05 in a win over Holmdel, five days before the SC. That did nothing to hurt the team’s confidence.
Lindsay Diamond, last year’s conference all-around champion, surrendered that title to her rival, RBC’s Beate Jones, 37.750-37.225, but that wasn’t the focus of Saturday’s conference meet, the team championship meant everything.
“We really were a team; it was not about Lindsay,” Silverstone remarked. “It was a team effort. We have a kind of team camaraderie here that is going for us.”
It didn’t hurt that in addition to Diamond’s second in the all-around, teammates Sydney Roth was third (36.875) and Daniel D’Elea, was sixth. That carried the Cougars a long way, but so did the contributions of Gretchen Vollherbst and Amy Lewis.
Lewis, one of the few seniors on the team, recently returned from injury and her presence on the balance beam and floor exercise were important for the Cougars.
Vollherbst made her impact on the uneven bars and the vault.
The event that solidified Colts Neck’s triumph was the balance beam.
“Going one-two really helped,” said Silverstone. “The beam usually makes or breaks a team.”
With Roth (9.45) and Diamond (9.425) finishing first and second, the beam was Colts Neck’s friend.
Another strong event for Colts Neck was the vault. The Cougars had three gymnasts using a double-fly away vault and each stuck their landing.
Diamond won the floor exercise (9.6), one of the Cougars’ two individual event winners. She was second to Roth on the beam, 10th on the bars (8.725), and third on the vault (9.475).
Roth tied for fourth on the floor (9.225) and was seventh on the bars (8.825) and vault (9.375).
D’Elea had the best routine on the bars for the Cougars, finishing third (9.075).
Marlboro was led by its Big Three of Nicole Lallo, Jackie Mandelbaum and Lauren Jack.
Jack was fourth on the bars (9.05), sixth on the beam (9.025) and eighth on the vault (9.35).
Mandelbaum was eighth on the bars (8.8) for the Mustangs.
Gymnasts now turn their attention to Saturday’s NJSIAA State Sectional, the Central Jersey Championships, at Manalapan High School. Colts Neck will be looking to add the CJ crown to their first-year laurels. They will again have to negotiate their way through RBC and Marlboro.
BY TIM MORRIS
Staff Writer