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01/22/2012 11:00 PMFor the past few years, Brian LeRoux has guided Branford gymnastics as its head coach while also coaching a handful of athletes who competed as teams-of-one at North Haven because the Indians didn't have enough athletes to field a full-fledged team. Well, things are different in North Haven these days as the sport is on the rise in town and the school now has the mandatory four gymnasts needed to form a squad. Consequently, LeRoux is coaching the Indians in tandem with his two other burgeoning programs in Branford and Hamden and said the situation is going smoothly all-around as the teams practice at his own In-Flight Gymnastics and then hit the floor-along with the bars, beam, and vault-for some competition.
In fact, Branford and North Haven went up against each other twice last week with each team posting a victory, putting both the Hornets' and Indians' records at 3-4.
"I'm excited that North Haven can once again compete as a team and that Branford, North Haven, and Hamden all have young ladies with a big hunger and enthusiasm for working hard and competing for their schools," said LeRoux. "It's a situation that's working positively for everyone as the girls from all three teams are doing a good job of communicating and encouraging one another. And when I see one of those athletes record a personal-best score or hit a skill they've been working on, that's what makes me enjoy being a coach."
LeRoux enjoyed watching strong performances from each of his teams last week, starting when the trio traveled to Madison for a quad-meet. Although none of his squads were quite able to defeat host Hand-which is perennially one of the state's best and proved it on Jan. 17 by scoring 133.1 points-North Haven's total of 81.7 was enough to defeat Branford's mark of 59.6 and Hamden's 40.5.
Then two nights later at In-Flight, it was the Hornets' turn to notch a pair of victories as Branford tallied an 82.9 to best the Indians (56.8) and Hamden (15.1).
In the latter meet, Branford freshman Cynthia Lerman took first place in the all-around with a score of 29.8, finishing first on vault (8.0) and bars (7.3) to go with second-place showings on floor (7.4) and beam (7.1). Junior and fellow all-around gymnast Jenn Lassman also placed high in the all-around by taking fourth with a total of 23.1 points. That duo is joined on the team by sophomore Jessica Beler and freshman Aaryne Antell-each whom LeRoux expects to compete in all four events-along with junior captain Marai Hashimoto, who does bars and floor.
"Cynthia is already scoring points for us and will score more as the difficulty of her routines goes up while the season goes on. Jenn is also another all-arounder who will work on bigger skills and she and Cynthia work really well together," said LeRoux, who's assisted by his two daughters, Jamie and Lisa LeRoux, both who are alums of Indians' gymnastics. "Aaryn is another hard-working kid who's close to doing all four events and Jess got out to a little bit of a slow start, but has shown an appetite to get her scores up and stays very positive in training. She hit a back-handspring on the floor for the first time the other night. Marai has been a wonderful captain with keeping everyone together and being a great communicator with myself and her teammates. All of our girls lead by example and are great to have on the team."
After a few more regular-season meets, Branford will compete at the SCC Championship at Law at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 16.