- Details
- Category: Current Issue
captions:
3rd in Championships
Right: Woodstock Academy junior Jenna Davidson gets ready for a run in the floor exercise competition at the New England Gymnastics championship. Above: The team displays its third-place trophy at the New England Gymnastics championship March 9. Photos by Marc Allard/The Woodstock Academy
It was a fitting way for the four seniors on the Woodstock Academy gymnastics team to leave the stage – with another trophy.
It wasn’t the biggest one.
The Centaurs weren’t expecting that.
But it was a team performance that carried the Centaurs to a third-place finish March 9 at the New England gymnastics championship at Hudson High School in Hudson, Mass.
“It was definitely awesome,” said Woodstock Academy senior Ali Crescimanno. “We’ve gone from winning (at home in 2017) to getting sixth (last year at Pinkerton Academy in New Hampshire) to getting third as a team. It was just so great to end this way. Everyone had such a great meet. We didn’t have to count any falls (Saturday).”
The Centaurs had heard rumors coming into the meet that the two Massachusetts teams were putting up big scoring numbers.
Those rumors were quickly found to be accurate when defending New England champion, the Bridgewater-Raynham-West Bridgewater cooperative program from Massachusetts posted a 37.250 team score in its first event, the vault.
Massachusetts state champion, Newton South, which went second in the vault rotation, followed that up with a 36.95 team total.
The Centaurs knew what they were in for.
“They have some awesome gymnasts and I’m super-happy to see that. When you have teams like that, there is not much you can do except do your best,” said Woodstock Academy coach Kasey Tocchio.
In essence, the New England gymnastics championship became a larger version of the state championship in Connecticut for the Centaurs.
Don’t worry about individual scores, focus on the team accomplishments.
“We really just wanted to place better than we did last year and we did that as a team,” senior Lydia Taft said.
The Centaurs posted their third-best scoring effort of the season, a 144.5.
Newton South finished with an impressive 149.3 total while Bridgewater-Raynham-West Bridgewater put together a 147.875 effort.
“I’m really excited about that,” Tocchio said of the third-place finish. “Watching the meet (Saturday), seeing the two teams that were really big, third is awesome.”
Taft agreed.
“We definitely knew that seeing the other team’s scores, we knew we hadn’t quite got there yet, but we just wanted to the best we could, even if it wasn’t first,” Taft said.
Tocchio couldn’t stop smiling after the meet.
“Let’s talk about beam,” she said.
It’s something the Woodstock Academy coach didn’t necessarily want to do after the State Open competition just three days prior.
“We all stayed on beam and that was so exciting. It was really exciting to see how we pulled together and did what we really wanted to do,” Tocchio said.
The Centaurs finished with a 36.245 total on beam with junior Jenna Davidson leading the way with a 9.4.
“We were so happy with beam. We all hit our routines, got good scores. I don’t if we have all made our beam routines (in the same meet) this year so far. We were all happy after that,” Taft said.
Taft finished with 9.3 with fellow seniors, Maddie Grube, (9.275) and Abby Vaida (8.3) also scoring.
Tocchio said Grube’s performance on beam was the highlight for her.
Grube struggled on it, normally one of her best events, at the Open.
“I was pretty proud of myself,” Grube said. “I fell twice at State Open so to come back and really nail it was amazing.”
Taft finished best in the All-Around competition for the Centaurs.
The senior finished with a 36.6.
“I was happy with how I competed. The State Open didn’t go as well for me. This meet, I really picked it back up,” Taft said.
Taft finished best in the bars where she put together a 9.35 performance, good for sixth overall in the competition. She was 12th in the beam, tied for 22nd in the vault (9.0) and tied for 37th on the floor (8.95).
Crescimanno tied for 13th in the All-Around with a 36.15.
The senior tied for fourth in the bars with a 9.475; tied for 11th in the vault with a 9.3; finished in a tie for 13th on the floor with a 9.3, and scored 8.075 on beam.
Crescimanno anticipated that this was not going to be a normal day on the podium for the Centaurs. “High school gymnastics has come so far over the years and it just keeps getting better and better every year. It’s awesome to see the big gymnastics in the postseason. It’s cool to watch,” Crescimanno said.
Davidson added a 9.3 on the floor (tied for 13th place overall), an 8.725 on the vault and an 8.525 on the bars to finish with a 35.95 total, good for 15th in the All-Around scoring. It was the last time that seniors Crescimanno, Grube, Taft and Vaida compete with the Centaurs as a team. “It’s definitely sad,” Crescimanno said. “It’s been a crazy, even more, than four years. I’ve been doing (gymnastics) for so long. For this to be like, an ending point, it’s pretty cool.”
Grube said, while it may be the last time the team competes as a whole this season, there is still one more meet on the horizon.
“We don’t think of it as an ending yet because we have Senior Nationals, but it’s sad to be ending with all of these girls. Still, we’re pretty happy with how it went,” the senior said.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy
..