Summit High Gymnastics Finishes Season With a Bang

The following was provided by SHSGymnastics:

This fall, Summit High School fielded a Varsity gymnastics team for only the second time after a promising 2012 inaugural year. The results were impressive by any measure, and since the vast majority of the team is made up of underclassmen, the sky is the limit for this relatively new venture. 

Summit finished with a winning dual-meet record of 5-4, facing off against perennial power-house teams including Westfield (who was ranked #1 in the state for most of the year), Cranford and Scotch Plains-Fanwood.  The Hilltoppers placed 3rd at the Cougar Classic Invitational and then finished 5th in both the Union County Championship and the NJSIAA North II State Sectional Championship.  The team was ranked by the Star Ledger among the top 20 teams for 5 weeks this season, averaging over 105 points each meet. 

The team was led by two returning sophomore co-captains, Noa Efron and Emily Donohue, and then a squad of 9 freshmen, including top all-arounders Abby Claus and Alysia Lopez. In support of the all-around gymnasts, Summit relied on its depth and counted on contributions from freshmen Ginny Collins, Alexis Greenblatt, Kiera Little, Chela LeRoy, sophomore Claire DePhillips, Kaitlin Stewart and junior co-captain Naomi Schachter to round out its Varsity lineups.  During the course of the season, new school records were set by Lopez in the All-Around (36.125) and vault (9.225) and by Claus in bars (9.325), beam (9.375) and floor (9.25).  Claus and Lopez also led the team in All-County awards by making first team honors for bars and beam (Claus) and all-around (Lopez).  Second team All-County awards were earned by Claus (floor and all-around), Lopez (vault and bars) and Efron (floor).  Emily Donohue was awarded an all-county honorable mention.

Heading into post-season competition, Summit Varsity qualified six athletes to the NJSIAA North II Sectional championship, including Claus, Lopez, Efron and Donohue in the all-around and Collins and Greenblatt as event specialists (all are pictured above).  Abby Claus finished 9th overall, 11th on bars and 5th on beam with a 9.25.  Team-mate Alysia Lopez won 10th place on vault at the Sectional meet.  Abby Claus’ 5th place finish on beam earned her Summit’s first entry at the NJSIAA State Championship Meet held on November 16th.  She finished her season among the best gymnasts in the state with a 32nd place finish on beam.

The Junior Varsity team also made its mark finishing its dual meet season 1-1 and bringing home 14 medals from the North Jersey Novice Invitational held at Ridgewood HS on October 26th.  Top finishers from that meet included Grace Bebout, Pilar Canavosio, Jasmine Burton, Mary Jo Araya, Lauren Allinson, Lucy Woodward and Rachelle Franco, each of whom earned at least one medal competing against teams from 13 other north Jersey teams.

Although Summit Gymnastics is an official team approved by the BOE, it is unfunded by the BOE budget.  This means that it relies entirely on financial support from the players and the community.  The team is made possible by the incredible generosity of The Connection for Women & Families (www.theconnectiononline.org), which provides its state- of-the-art gymnastics facility as not only a training gym, but also as a “home” gym where it can host meets throughout its season.  The Connection provides coaching support, equipment, choreography and scholarship support to girls on the team unable to pay the training fees.  Uniforms were provided to the team by the Summit Boosters Association (www.summitboostersnj.org). 

The girls also ran bake sales and other fundraisers to help defray some of their costs and to help “pay it forward” by supporting the Connection’s scholarship fund.  The success of the team is a group effort—one that paid huge dividends for both the individuals involved and the organizations that supported them.