The gymnastics team placed fifth at Sections this year and as senior gymnast Audrey Scalici reflects on her last Sections meet, she feels satisfied with the team’s performance and supportive energy.

“It was definitely a really good meet for our whole team. I think it was a really fun meet too and everybody just had a really positive attitude,” Scalici said. “The JV team was there too and we were all hanging out. It was really fun.”

Scalici said she accomplished her season goal of receiving a score of 9 on the floor event at Sections.

“For me personally, I got my high score this season and I finally got a 9, which has been my goal for two seasons now, so that was really exciting ,” Scalici said. “We’ve had a lot of people who have come really close to 9 for a long time but now we finally had one, so our team is moving up.”

Sophomore Savannah Romero said she injured her knee while warming up for Sections, which prevented her from performing how she hoped to.

“I thought I could have done a lot better because first event pre-meet warm up I injured my knee a little bit. The rest of the meet was kind of rough and I did not compete to my best ability,” Romero said.

Romero said injuries played a huge role in varsity scores and performance this season.

“These injuries have put some of the varsity back, so we could’ve been way better and State could have been a lot easier to achieve, but with the injuries we got set back and it was harder to get back to the point we were at,” Romero said.

Athletic trainer Jeremy Sheppard said it is important for gymnasts to do additional training to prevent injuries in the future.

“I encourage (gymnasts) to get involved in a formal strength and conditioning program because that teaches them (plyometrics),” Sheppard said. “It teaches them proper landing techniques and it teaches them good quadriceps activation.”

Romero said as the team was reflecting on the season, they believed offseason training would be beneficial to accomplishing the team’s goal of making it to State next season and would also reduce the risk of injuries.

“We all, at the last practice after Sections, talked about goals we wanted to get in the off-season. We talked about skills we personally wanted to get that could help us go to State next year,” Romero said. “If we learn (skills) in the off season we will already have the skills and that would lower the risk of getting injuries.”