Illnesses and injuries cause gymnastics to tumble

APRIL 20, SHERWOOD GYMNASIUM—

The gymnastics team persevered in a tough match-up against Sherwood and Gaithersburg high schools. This tri-meet left the Blazers feeling unsatisfied with their performances and left junior Lisa Wong with a potentially broken toe.

Blair placed well in three out of the four events. On bars, Blair freshman Anna Hadfield took third place with a score of 8.5 and junior Lisa Wong won first with 9.3 with masterful performances.

Hadfield and Wong also placed third and first on vault. On beam, Hadfield won second and Wong won third, even after a nerve-wracking dismount that could have potentially broken her toe. "I slipped on beam during my dismount and I landed really badly. One of my feet slipped and my toe got caught. It's bleeding now," she said.

Wong's injury caused her to pass on the floor event. Although there were not any Blazers present in the top three for floor, freshman Abby Cember placed sixth. Floor also helped convey the team's ability to think on the spot. After slight mishaps, both Hadfield and senior co-captain Rose Feinburg made up new choreography on the spot which, they said, they like better than their old choreography and may keep it for the next meet.

Hadfield represented Blair in sixth place as one of the best All-Around gymnasts of the night with a 31.8. The first place went to a gymnast from Gaithersburg High School whose total score was only two points higher than hers.

The final scores for the night were not released due to technical difficulties, but Blair was still able to secure good advice from the judges. "It wasn't our best meet but I talked to the judges and felt like I learned a lot. Mostly we need to work on the finer points of the routines. I think we're better than we were today," said coach Ronnie Joice.

Feinberg agrees with Joice about working on the routines but also feels like more basic needs also need to be addressed. "We need to work on the compositions of some of our routines. We need to focus more on getting everyone healthy and able to compete. We're a really strong team, and although this meet may not have been the best reflection of all our strengths, we stepped it up when things did not go as planned."

Senior co-captain Raya Steinberg could not compete today because of her health, and agrees with Feinberg that, when everyone is well, the team is really quite strong. "If we has been full force, had everyone been healthy, we would have had a chance of winning." "We should do well next time," Steinberg predicts.

The next game is on April 27^th at Walter Johnson at 6 pm against Springbrook and Walter Johnson. Come support Blair's gymnastic team!