Bart Conner’s Level 10s recently returned from the Junior Olympic competition held in Long Beach, May 12th-15th. The team had a great trip to California with four of the five qualifiers competing for a very first time at the JO Nationals! In addition, two more level 10s from the team competed at the Junior Olympic Nationals Invitational Tournament (NIT) held at the same arena right after the JO National meet. Prior each session all the competitors were escorted in black and white limos delivering them to a “red carpet” area in the middle of the arena, where the gymnasts were officially introduced to the crowd:
Ashley Lilly was the first gymnast to compete for BCGA in the Senior A age group. Ashley started with a great vault sticking her front handspring front. Then she carried the momentum to bars where she was solid (Gienger, overshoot, toe shoot). Perhaps the nerves of competing at her first Level 10 Nationals got to her, and she was unusually unsteady on the beam where she suffered two falls. Despite the shift of momentum Ashley managed to finish strongly with a great floor routine. Her Region 3 team finished 3rd in the age group behind Region 5 and Region 1, who were 1st and 2nd respectively.
Competing second for the team were Emily Barrett and Kristen Etherton in the Senior C age group. Kristen had an outstanding competition hitting four for four events. On her best event beam, Kristen performed an excellent routine (ff, layout; front aerial, beat jump; switch leap, back tuck and round off 1 ½ dismount). Kristen’s score of 9.45 was the 2nd highest for the Region 3 team and put her 10th in the nation on the event.
After a great Regional competition Emily had somewhat of an off day at the Nationals, but still managing to hit three out of four routines (only mistake, fall on Jaeger on bars). On her strongest event, beam, Emily had a few wobbles and a step on the landing, which she was a bit disappointed with. Then she hit a solid floor routine with a slightly under rotated double pike dismount. On vault she performed two different 10.0 SV vaults but the stuck landings eluded her on both. This was Emily’s second consecutive JO Nationals participation! A week after the competition Emily was offered a full scholarship to the University of Denver!
In the final session of the competition Katie Brown and Lauren Cullen competed in the Junior D and Senior D age groups respectively. With hitting four solid routines it was a fitting way for Lauren to finish her career at Bart Conner. Lauren who is a graduating senior will be competing for Centenary College in the fall.
Katie Brown had a great day and posted the highest all-around score for our team. She started with two great routines on bars and beam. Followed by an outstanding floor routine where she debuted a double pike (9.475). On the final event for her, vault, Katie stuck her Yurchenko layout half, which was voided due to Katie saluting and performing her vault while the judges had not yet signaled her. Katie used her second attempt to show another great vault with yet another stuck landing. With a score of 9.625 Katie placed 7th on the event in the Nation, which was the highest finish for her at the meet.
At the NIT competition seniors, Brooklyn Schumacher and Amy Lilly competed in the Senior D age group. Amy, who hit four routines in a row at the meet, received an invitation after the meet to compete for Hamline University, Minnesota. Amy is considering the proposal and hopes to continue her gymnastics career in college.
Brooklyn, who made several mistakes during the competition but was noticed by few different universities because of her high difficulty skills, was offered a full scholarship from the University of Alaska. One week after the competition Brooklyn was offered a full scholarship from Ball State University as well. In addition, Brooklyn is negotiating scholarship opportunities with Arizona State and Southeast Missouri.
Prior to the competition the team attended the event’s banquet, which was held on the legendary Queen Mary ship. The girls enjoyed hanging out, making new friends and dancing passionately, where Brooklyn won the contest for the best dancer of the evening. In addition to their training and competitions the girls also found several hours to visit touristy Venice Beach and Santa Monica pier.
