Kaylie Made it to Finals!!!!

Since it's taken me a week to post it, you might think that I am not excited about Kaylie making it to finals---when in fact I am beyond proud and excited. I was just super behind in getting Halloween costumes done, so had to set my post aside until today!

Kaylie came down with a nasty chest cold 6 days before the Sectionals meet, and missed about half of her workouts. Very stressful, worrying about her health, and hoping that she would feel well enough to actually get thru her routines. Since she couldn't work out as much as planned, she spent some time on the computer, reviewing videos of her past competitions, and studying the official book that lays out the routine requirements and deductions. When she did get to the gym, she focused on the things she felt she needed to improve on from her previous meets. We also looked at the beam scores of the other girls in her age division that would also be competing at her session. She was within one tenth of a point of the highest score, so she knew she had a shot at getting on the podium for Sectionals. She really wanted to score a 9.0 or higher on at least one event, so that was the event she put her energy into.

She slept for an hour on the drive to the meet--and arrived feeling ready to go! Her team was assigned the Squadron A rotation (meaning they do events starting with vault, then bars, then beam, and finally floor.) She scored an 8.775 on vault--her second highest score on this event! Next up was bars. I got a little nervous during the warm-up, as she was struggling a bit--but she managed to do a decent routine and scored an 8.375--she wasn't happy with the routine or score, but thinks it was pretty good considering her health, etc. Now the event we were waiting for. I'd been jotting down the scores of the other gymnasts, and the highest at that point was an 8.9--could she do it?? She had a wobbly warm-up, but once she got up there to compete, it was gorgeous! Then they flashed her score-----a 9.1!!!!! A moment later I could see her hopping up and down, she was soooo excited! One of her teammates tied her score, and then they were off to the floor routine. She was managing pretty well energy wise (I bet the adrenaline was going from the excitement of her first 9.1 score!) and scored an 8.7 on her floor routine--the best yet in an USAG competition! Her all-around score was 34.95--her best to date, and easily qualifying for Finals.

During her team's floor rotation, one of the girls on beam scored a 9.350 so that put Kaylie, and her teammate Cierra in second place for beam---Kaylie didn't realize that as she hadn't been watching the scores--so she was amazed, and super thrilled when they called her name for the award! And to top it all off, she also came in 7th in the All-around! It was a really good meet!

She had a relapse of her cold by Monday--worse than ever--so she missed a few more days of school, and all of her workouts for the week. Now she's feeling much better, and ready to get busy during the next two weeks until Finals!

I've posted some photos in the slideshow--they're a bit out of focus because the gym set up the podiums to the back of the gym, instead of up front by the spectators--but you get the idea!