Vikings gymnasts improve to 2-0 with impressive win

Vikings Gymnastics scored a surprising upset victory against a talented rival on Monday evening, defeating the Cold Spring Harbor Seahawks at Cold Spring Harbor High School.

Score: Port Washington prevailed by a six-point margin, 127.45 to 121.25.

Port's coaching staff gathered around the score sheet in delight and disbelief, wondering if perhaps a math error had somehow given them the higher number.  But there was no error – the Vikings put out a solid team effort, overcame mistakes, and won the meet with their gymnastics ability.

The Quote: "I can't tell you what a big win this is," coach Melissa Havern said, clutching the score sheet and smiling.  "My goal for this team this year was for them to perform a little bit better in each meet, but this win is huge because Cold Spring Harbor has a great team."

The Turning Point: By far the best event for the Vikings was vault, winning by a score of 38.15 to 30.45.  All six Port gymnasts in the event scored higher than 7.  Jessica Medaglia led the vaulters with a 7.85, followed by Liz Wolf's 7.8.  Chase Burke of Cold Spring Harbor finished third in the vault, with 7.75.

Heroes: The uneven bars were won by Jessica Medaglia, with a score of 6.5, followed by Lindsay Herling of the Seahawks with 6.2.  The bars proved to be the most challenging event for all the gymnasts, with the team score just 27.1 for Port to 26.1 for Cold Spring Harbor.  The only other Port gymnast to score at least a 6 was Candace Yap.

"Bars is the most difficult event," Havern said.  "It requires a lot of upper body strength, and the tricks are very hard to learn.  Unless they do gymnastics year-round in a club it's really hard to maintain the skills; it's a really exhausting apparatus," said Havern.

Both teams performed well on the beam, with Port edging CSH by only one-tenth of a point, 30.2 to 30.1.  The key for the Vikings was consistency, with all six gymnasts scoring between 5.7 and 6.3. Carly Grieco, with daring moves that included an aerial somersault, led the Vikings with a 6.3.  Chase Burke won the event with 6.8, but her teammates couldn't back her up with high enough scores for the team win.

Finally, on the floor exercise, Jessica Medaglia had another strong performance with excellent tumbling.  Her foot slipped on her first tumbling pass, though, and the bobble held her score to 7.0.  That was still the best Viking score on floor exercise, but Burke won the event with a 7.6.  The floor exercise was also the only event that CSH won, beating Port 34.6 to 32.

The Vikings, buoyed by their strong performance, concluded the evening with a brief celebration, and a cheer for their competitors.  Then they dashed across the frigid parking lot to their bus.

Who's Next: They will take to the floor again on Wednesday at 5 p.m. at against Garden City High School.