Boston Classic January 22, 2010

The Level 7s kicked off the Boston Classic in the early morning session on Saturday January 22, 2011. Fortunately the roads were clear from the snowy weather on Thursday and Friday. The meet was held at the Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, MA. Being a High School gym with limited bleacher seating the venue was crowded. But, unlike most meets this year the parking was more than ample and the awards area was a large and comfortable auditorium with graduated seating for easy viewing.

Ellie, Allie, and Isabel competed for the level 7s. Ellie finished the meet with a 33.320 AA. She scored 8.45 on vault, 8.670 on bars (6th), 7.9 on beam and 8.3 on floor. Allie placed 7th (9.15) on beam, 8th (8.95) on bars and 10th AA (35.5). She scored an 8.85 on vault and an 8.55 on floor. Isabel placed 2nd (9.1) on bars, and 10th on both vault and floor with an 8.7. She scored 8.4 on beam and placed 5th (34.9) AA.

The Level 8 Session kicked off mid morning. Jackie and Nicole both competed in the Child age division. Jackie started the meet with a whopping 9.55 (1st) on bars! Nicole followed with a 9.2 (5th) on bars and received another 9.2 on beam (4th) beam. Jackie followed with an 8.95 (8th). Jackie placed 3rd on vault with an 8.9 and received an 8.5 on floor. Nicole placed 7th on vault with an 8.7 and placed 9th on floor with an 8.775. Jackie placed 4th AA 35.9 - just a tenth shy of a 36! Nicole placed 5th AA with 35.875. Awesome job girls! As a team of 2, Jackie and Nicole were not eligible for a team award which was probably a good thing because there was a scoring snafu that resulted in banners being awarded to the top 3 teams and then they were taken back and re-awarded in a different order and in one case to a different team! Then another change was announced and some more shuffling took place. At that point we thought all was well, but shortly after in the café there was a scramble to get the banners back due to another error. At least one team had left banner in hand. Hopefully, in the end, the banners will end up where they belong!

The Level 10s participated in the Saturday afternoon session. Having rolled her ankle Friday night Allison competed bars only.  She placed 4th with a 7.750.  Alyssa placed 3rd on bars, 4th on beam with a whopping 9.35 routine, and 8th on vault.  She placed 4th AA with a 34.8. 

So, we thought the Level 8 team award saga was bad, but the Level 10 awards topped even that! Having watched the Level 9s awards being divided into Jr. and Senior divisions we wondered why the Level 10 awards were limited to just a Jr. division. The medals were handed out and then it was discovered that the awards should have been broken into two divisions! To correct the error they told the gymnasts to keep the medals they were given (they were all the same regardless of place) and then they read off the list of winners by division. Still seems like some girls were shorted medals, but with all the confusion who knows? Team awards were just as confusing with several attempts to give banners to teams that didn’t have enough gymnasts to compete as a team! Again, hopefully the banners will end up where they belong!

In the end you couldn’t help but feel bad for the host gym and the people giving out the awards. It was obvious they had put a lot of effort into hosting a nice meet and it was unfortunate the awards spiraled out of control. They of course blamed “the computer” - so I had to take back a few sympathy points and re-award them to the computer user!!