After plowing its way past the competition nearly a week before on its own equipment in its home gymnasium, the Londonderry High School girls’ gymnastics squad took to the road this past Sunday, Dec. 18 and enjoyed considerable success at Spaulding High in Rochester.
The defending state champions tallied a team score of 131.50 to best five opponents including Windham (127.15), Pelham (123.65), host Spaulding (114.65), Dover (112.1), and Salem (111.9).
“Only having two practices between our last meet and this one, our girls had to step it up for this spring-floor meet,” said LHS coach Heather Tuden. “We definitely had some falls where we normally wouldn’t, but we still kept our team score above a 130. Each meet teaches us a little more about the team and what we need to work on and where we need to improve.”
And the Lancer coach had plenty of reasons to be pleased with the individual work of quite a number of her athletes in the meet.
“We had strong vault performances from Maddie Croteau, Cassidy Williams, and Chelsea Pinet, solid uneven bar routines from Seana Kelly, Cassidy Williams, Maddie Croteau, and Tara Nigro, while Cassidy Williams, Suzie Moore, Tyla Kelley, and Chelsea Pinet all had clean and tight (balance) beam routines, and Cassidy Williams, Suzie Moore, Chelsea Pinet, Camille Lamont, and Taylor Mackenzie danced it up on floor.”
Londonderry, which was competing in the meet without one of its standouts due to injury and with another hampered by the flu and only competing in a few events, had Williams finish a strong second in the all-around.
Suzie Moore was one of the stalwarts who stepped up in a significant way during her LHS team’s recent road meet in Rochester. Photo by Chris Paul