The Deep Run High School Gymnastics team won Regionals for the third time in a row on Feb. 3 at Deep Run. A regional meet day can be hard to tackle with the early preparation required for teams from all over to come. The team was able to get the gym ready with a little help from parents and coaches.
“We got to school at 8 a.m. and had a little team breakfast before, and then around nine we began pulling out all of the equipment and setting everything up in the gym,” senior Kaitlyn Bickmeier said. “This is not the most fun process; it’s a lot of work setting everything up, but it goes pretty quick because we have a lot of people who are willing to help us.”
Although the season had a rocky start, the players made sure to keep each other accountable for doing their best at practice.
“I think it has been really good. There’s been some ups and downs with winning and losing, but I think towards the end, we definitely got our stuff together,” sophomore Molly Mack said.
During the regional meet, many players scored well in their individual events and even had some season bests. The all-around competition is when you participate in all four events, which include beam, bars, floor, and vault. Junior Christina Parlantieri competed in all-around for the Wildcats.
“If you compete in all-around, all of your scores go to the team score regardless, so I really just wanted to make sure I perform my best in a lot of the events I did,” Parlantieri said.
With Deep Run recently moving up a class to 6A, lots of the competition has become more difficult. Many schools the gymnastics team is up against are athletes they have not seen before from Northern Virginia schools.
“Since we moved up in our class, it is going to be harder, but we are just glad we made it,” Parlantieri said.
Many players were shocked to have accomplished the big win at Regionals because the competition was good, and Deep Run seemed to have been neck and neck with Grassfield High School. Although the win was a slight surprise, the team was ready to take on states.
“I felt excited because we have won the past two years. So I felt like if we didn’t win this year, it would have been a letdown, and I’m excited to go to States,” Thurman said.
The team competed in States on Feb.16 and 17 at Ocean Lakes High School, where they placed fourth in the comptetition.
