The Forest Hills gymnastics team fell short of Rockford this Tuesday, January 17. The ladies broke up into two separate teams for the first time, in hopes of a better chance of qualifying scores; fourteen people competed instead of seven.

The first team obtained a score of 122.5, and the second team a score of 123.5. Senior captain Charlotte Stephan is proud of what she and her team achieved. 

“I’m pleased with what we did against Rockford,” Charlotte explained. “We put up decent scores, although the performance at the meet was not our worst but not our best.”

With both teams combined, the ladies didn’t reach the highest qualifications they desired. 8/9 girls qualified on vault, 6/10 on bars, 4/12 on beam, and 8/12 on floor. Nevertheless, both teams qualified.

Entering the competition, the liveliness in the gym began to rise. The division of the teams boosted the emotions and helped the girls feel more confident.

“The energy was pretty high and positive,” said junior Rachael Yeager. “Almost everyone got to compete in all the events they wanted to because we had two teams, so I think we were all excited about that.”

The team did well in many aspects, but one thing they excelled at was vault. From twist to turn, almost everyone managed to qualify. Senior captain Abby Cummings was ecstatic about the vault performance.

“I am super excited that everyone did so well!” Abby exclaimed.  “A lot of the time, vault can be hard to get at practice, so I am glad we are able to push through and show up at our competitions.”

Overall the team is slowly improving and working as hard as possible. There are some tinkers and tweaks to be made, but the progress the girls have made through the rough has been extremely beneficial. 

“We have been doing well building up scores for regionals on each event. But we could definitely work on gaining upgraded skills at practice in order to receive higher scores,” Abby explains. “I’m super excited for what our team has in store as we work through injuries and tough competition.”

The girls will travel to Haslett High School on Friday, January 20. They will be competing at 6:30 p.m.