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02/09/2020 11:00 PMThe Valley Regional gymnastics squad was victorious at the Shoreline Conference Championship this past week. On Feb. 7, the Warriors turned in the highest tally of 111.95 points at the Shoreline Conference Championship Meet at ABC Gymnastics in Niantic to bring home a banner for Valley.
Earning the Shorelines victory was a pretty impressive feat for the Warriors given the fact that the team is comprised solely of sophomores and freshmen. To make things more challenging, Valley was dealing with several injuries to key contributors, as well. Still, the team managed to pull out the win. Sophomore captain Erin Ward felt proud of her squad for putting it all together with the pieces that they had. Ward has the most experience in gymnastics on her team, but she had to be sidelined for this meet due to injury. Still she felt so proud of her teammates.
“There’s a lot of talent on the shoreline. We’ve all been working really hard at the gym,” said Ward. “We have a young team, and our two most experienced people are injured. I’m one of the people that are injured. I’ve been doing gymnastics for about 13 years. We also had someone out sick. Our team pulled together really well to get the win.”
Valley Regional gymnastics Head Coach Carl Cavrell knew his team needed every score it could get to be able to claim the title. One of the biggest reasons that the Warriors were able to record the victory was because of Raquel Farray.
“Our two best athletes were injured. It was a tight meet. I’d say that the most important thing for us was that Raquel—who has never done gymnastics like this before this year. She really couldn’t do much at first, but she was doing a little here and there,” Cavrell says. “If it wasn’t for her being able to compete in all four events we probably wouldn’t have been able to win. She saved us even though she wasn’t the highest scorer for us.”
Coach Cavrell believes that his sophomore captain has been sorely missed in competition, but definitely not as a positive voice at meets. Ward has been there for the Warriors every step of the way regardless of her availability to compete.
“Erin’s a very good leader. She’s been taking the role of captain seriously. She’s at the practices and helps run the meets even when she’s not competing. She’s our most experienced competitor, some of the other sophomores have her experience, but she’s just so talented and can do so much.”
One of Valley’s important scorers was freshman Kendra Cika, who scored 8.0 on the vault, 7.9 on the floor, 7.3 on the beam, and 5.9 on the bars. Coach Cavrell has been impressed with the progress that she’s made this season.
“I think Kendra Cika has improved the most. It’s her first year as a freshman, and she wasn’t able to do much before,” said Cavrell, who shares duties with Flip-Flop Gymnastics owner Monica Bauer. “Her vault has improved considerably, her tumbling is better. In all her events she’s done much, much better.”
Julie Hartt had a solid showing for the Warriors, and part of that had to do with the strides that she’s made in the vault. Hartt scored 7.5 on the vault, 7.05 on the beam, 7.4 on the floor, and 6.9 on the bars.
“Julie’s vault has improved a lot this year,” said Cavrell. “Overall, she’s been very steady this season. Julie is someone that we can rely on.”
Sophomore Grace Jacaruso provided a nice array of scores for the Warriors. Jacaruso scored 8.3 on the vault, 7.45 on the beam, 7.2 on the bars, and 8.05 on the floor. Now in her second season with the Valley squad, Cavrell has seen Jacarusso make some serious strides in her abilities.
“Grace is much improved over last year. She used to be pretty timid and nervous at first,” said Cavrell. “She’s developed a lot more confidence as the year has gone on. She’s stepping up to the plate and doing some good things.”
Of course, one of the chief reason’s for the Warriors win came down to Farray, who scored a 6.7 on the vault, 4.9 on the bars, a 4.8 on the beam, and a 6.3 on the floor. Ward feels grateful to each member of this team of different parts that came together to form a conference champion.
“This team, we all didn’t really know each other that well at first. We’ve been working in the gym, and we’ve grown as a team, as well as individually,” Ward said. “We have a whole range of experience. We have a freshman who just started competing this year and others—like me—who have been competing their whole lives. I think our team is really well-rounded, we have athletes that are stronger in other events to pick up the slack where other athletes are weaker.”
Looking ahead, Coach Cavrell is already feeling excited for next season.
“One of the big plusses is that we’re not losing anybody through graduation come next season,” Cavrell said. “The fact that the entire team is made up of freshmen and sophomores, that’s pretty great.”