Kaylie Qualified for Sectionals!!

Hello Everyone,

We're so excited that at Kaylie's first USAG meet yesterday, she scored a 33.55 all-around, which qualified her to compete at sectionals this year!

It was a fun day and although Kaylie was nervous and excited, she didn't let it get to her. The team started with the vault (usually Kaylie's worst event) and she scored an 8.9! She usually gets in the high 7's, so that was an awesome result for her, and the third highest score on her team.

Next up was the bars--normally she scores a bit higher on this one, but she still managed to get a good enough score to place for her age group---8.2 with a clean routine. The team as a whole didn't practice bars much in the days leading up to the meet--quite a few of the girls had "rips". Basically they had tears on the palms of their hands. That's something gymnast just have to put up with, but not really ideal to have them at competition time! Kaylie's were mostly healed, and didn't really bother her for this competition.

The third rotation was for beam. It seems that the whole team was nervous about this one, and most of the girls fell at least once in their routines. Kaylie wasn't happy that she was wobbly during her routine, but managed to do a nice job, stay on the beam, and finish in time for a score of 8.6---best score for her team.

Last was the floor routine---looked ok from across the gym, but apparently lots of small deductions, and a problem with her round-off-back-handspring so she got a score of 7.850---a full point lower than she usually scores, but a good learning opportunity. I am so proud of her that she didn't let it faze her, she's just super determined to work extra hard on her routines this week so that she does even better on the meet this Saturday!

Competing against other teams who have obviously been competing at this level for a while was a bit disconcerting for the girls, but they didn't let it get to them---too much! Apparently, some gyms will hold their gymnasts back until they regularly score in the mid to upper 30's---this helps the gym achieve higher rankings at meets, but does create an un-level playing field for those girls who are competing for the first time. At this meet, there were two teams who were competing for the first time, and two teams who have been competing for quite a bit longer. Some gyms also have a stricter program, and ours is definitely focused on the girls having a good experience over just getting great scores. I really love the family atmosphere at our gym.

So my fears of 1st meet catastrophe are laid to rest, and now that she has made that qualifying score, we can just relax and enjoy the next two preliminary meets---this Saturday the 26th, and then the weekend of October 10th.