BI gymnasts prevail on Senior Night over Port Angeles/Sequim

No one was sure whether or not the gymnastics teams in the West Sound would get a season, but Bainbridge has been back in their home gym over the past month and squeezed in a three-meet schedule.

The Spartans had a strong showing in the second of their three meets against a combined team from Port Angeles and Sequim. The gymnasts racked up 150.45 points, beating Port Angeles/Sequim by a single point.

There were plenty of high scores put up, and the Spartans improved as a team by 10 points from their first meet against North Kitsap. That’s an excellent performance considering COVID-19 often left gymnastics in a state of flux with the constant readjusting of restrictions and schedules.

“We were in for a month, then we were out,” Bainbridge senior Sydney Johnson said. “We had outdoor practices and Zoom practices. Coaches gave us conditioning to do by ourselves.”

Bainbridge got the green light in early May to begin practicing together, and the West Sound’s gymnastics teams were able to hastily put together a shortened slate of meets. “We really didn’t think we were going to get this at all,” Johnson said.

Johnson had the highest individual score of the meet against Port Angeles/Sequim, scoring a 9.25 on the balance beam. She also scored an 8.3 in the floor exercise, 8.0 in the vault and 6.75 in the uneven parallel bars to finish third in the all-around with a total of 32.3.

Avery Gray finished second in the all-around behind Alex Schmaeke from Port Angeles/Sequim. Gray scored a 9.2 in the floor exercise, 8.65 on the balance beam, 8.2 in the vault and 6.9 in the uneven parallel bars.

Another senior, Kati Cooper, also had three top-six finishes in the meet. Cooper had an 8.5 in the balance beam, 7.6 in the floor exercise and 6.45 in the parallel bars.

Elizabeth Olliffe finished fifth in the balance beam with a score of 8.15. Olliffee also finished tied for fifth in the all-around with Port Angeles/Sequim’s Emma Sharp. Both gymnasts had a score of 28.9.

The home meet with Port Angeles/Sequim also served as Senior Night for the program’s three seniors — Johnson, Cooper and Aidan Cretarolo, a Bainbridge Island Gymnastics Club men’s team gymnast who took part in the events and practiced with the team this season. His scores did not count toward the team score, but he acquitted himself well with good results, including a 9.4 in the floor exercise and a 9.2 in the vault.

“It was really cool to come back and see all the technique we learned was still there,” Cretarolo said.