LEVEL 6 CONNECTICUT STATE CHAMPIONSHIP MAY 22, 2005

The University of Bridgeport has been home to many successes for Gymnastics Revolution over the years.  Going back to Lizzie and Katie’s State Championships, and even farther back to Mollie and Kristen’s early Gym Rev competitions, many of our greatest gymnasts have competed in the Wheeler Recreational Center. 

This year’s Level 6 State Championships continued a long line of great performances, including Cortney’s gold medal beam performance, Sam and Brittany’s extremely tight competition for the All Around, and finally, a third place trophy to bring home to the gym.

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The morning session consisted of the older girls, ages 13 and up.  Jenn and Kathy started strong on the vault, with 8.875 and 8.75, respectively.  Early on, it was clear that the judging was much tougher than the girls had seen all year.  On the bars, Brittany, Sara, and Sam turned in great routines, each placing in the top 5 for the event.  Balance beam, a tough event for the girls all year, was Brittany’s place to shine, where she came up with the team’s biggest score – and then she repeated it on floor.  In the All Around, Sam and Brittany had been neck and neck all day.  Scoring 33.175, Brittany took third place, and Sam stepped onto the second place podium with a 33.20 – just .025 ahead of her teammate!  Also of note, Sara took 8^th place in the All Around, and Kathy took 10^th.  

The older girls wished their younger counterparts good luck for the second session, and sat back to watch their teammates compete.  Once again starting on the vault, this time it was Erin’s turn to lead her team.  Her 8.55 led the team as they moved to bars.  The younger girls, unlike their older teammates, struggled on the bars, where Erin’s 8.2 was the highest score they could muster.  Katie’s routine was very clean, but didn’t score as highly as many thought it would, and the three girls had to regroup before moving to beam.

If they were looking for a complete turn-around, they got it on the Balance Beam, where Cortney nailed her routine for a 9.1, and the gold medal.  In fact, in the entire day of competition, only one other competitor scored higher than Cortney!  Re-energized, the girls moved to floor, where they finished their afternoon of competition with top scores of 8.3 and 8.2.

This team of 8 girls had only one competitor who had previous experience as a Level 6.  All new to the level, the girls moved up to Level 6 only in February, and have trained very hard to get to where they are.  While they were quite a margin behind the first and second place teams, their 165.4 in the Team Finals was still over a point ahead of the fourth place team.  Congratulations to all of the Gym Rev level 6’s on a great season!