Emily Jankura

Staff Writer

     Chalk flies through the air and sweat drips from the girls faces. It’s the first meet of the season and the gymnasts emotions are high. All the practices lead up to the few competitions that Foran goes to. They compete against other Connecticut schools to reach states. Each year girls get together to tryout to be part of the gymnastics family lead by Coach Dina. The 2019-2020 season has two senior captains; Grace Lavallee, Kalyn Cocchia, and Bella Pietrosanti. The team is always looking for new additions to gymnastics and it could be you!

     Coach Dina has been doing gymnastics since she was 2 years old and has competed for the Foran gymnastics team when she was in high school and continued into her college days. Now, as a coach for the team, she hopes to recruit new aspiring gymnasts to join this upcoming year at tryouts. Coach Dina mentions,“Tryouts are always the first week of December… it’s a three day tryout, 1 ½ -2 hours each day to show us (the coaches) what they can do. We don’t expect them to have completed routines, mostly skills and the potential to put a full routine together.”

     The team recently lost a few members of their family such as; Britney Lynch, Mya Wheeler, and Reilly Deschaine. Coach Dina states, “It was tough to lose the seniors. We lost some really good senior girls who did a lot of events for us. They worked so hard and it’s really hard to see them go.” She explains as her girls attend all practices and try their hardest, their team score will improve.

     Being part of a team changes the whole experience of high school for a student. Most gymnasts on the team in previous years have been doing gymnastics their whole life, such as Emma Jerue and Samantha Lambert, both Juniors. They continued that love into supporting their school’s team when they both joined their freshman year and plan to tryout again this year. 

    Going into the new year, all gymnastics make a goal for themselves and how to achieve those with the help of their gymnastics family. Samantha Lambert said, “I mostly enjoy the feeling of accomplishing a new skill, I also love being on a team because the people become like a family to me, on my club team and for a team….I have a new routine for this upcoming year, so my goal is to really show off my new routine and hopefully compete some new skills on beam.” Emma and Sam compete on four events; beams, bars, floor, and vault, but when on the team not all have to be competed. 

     To make it to states, a certain number of points at each meet has to obtained to increase the overall team score. But also gymnastics individually can make it to states. With more people on the team, more meets can be won and this will make the chances of competing at states higher. Making it to postseason events is always the goal of Foran’s team. Emma Jerue said, “My goals for this year are to be a better gymnast and hopefully win more meets this year. I do hope to make it to states. Making it to states will be a challenge but I think we can do it!”

     Although trying out for a sport may be intimidated, Emma Jerue included, “For the past two years, there have been no cuts.” We hope to see you at tryouts!