Killingly High School's young gymnasts work hard on their routines

(L-r) Gymnasts Rachel Coolidge, Lexie Gevry, Lexi Mazzarella, Alexa Weber, Taylor Mazzarella and Abbey Weber. Photos by Denise Coffey.

Deary’s gymnasium was filled with gymnasts on Jan. 28.  Six teams shared the gym that evening in order to make up for lost time due to snow storm cancellations.  Killingly High School, Woodstock Academy and Stonington competed against each other.  Norwich Free Academy was using the gym because it doesn’t have one of its own.  And teams from Plainfield and Windham were there, as well. Plainfield carried four gymnasts on its team but not all of them participated in all four events.

Woodstock Academy refused to lose, with high scores in each of the four events.  Shaila Segal scored 9.55 on the vault, 9.35 on the bars and 9.5 on the floor routine.  Courtney Osborn of Woodstock took the top score in the beam event with a 9.1.

Lexi Mazzarella came in second with her score of 9.1 on the floor routine. 

“The choreography goes with music.  They have to have a somersault, a connection of three skills in a row.  They have to have a leap combination, with three skills in a row, that kind of stuff,” explained Killingly's gymnastics coach, Robin Deary-Filmore.  “We have someone choreograph it.  Sometimes they pick the song and sometimes I pick it,” she said.

Killingly’s team took the second and third spots in the bars with a 9.0 and 8.8 from Lexi and Taylor Mazzarella respectively. 

Lexi Mazzarella scored an 8.8 on the beam for a third place individual finish.

 Woodstock Academy came in first with a team score of 140.05.  Killingly came in with 131.1 and Stonington compiled 120.6 points. 

Sheila Segal from Woodstock Academy had an all-around score of 37.40.  Courtney Osborn from WA had 35.6 and Lexi Mazzarella from Killingly came in with an all-around score of 35.2.

Coach’s Corner

Robin Deary-Filmore has been coaching for 25 years. She is proud of her young team.  “They are very young. They are working very hard.  They are pulling themselves together as a young team, staying healthy and working hard. They know they have a small team, so all their routines have to count.”

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Junior Lexie Gevry is the oldest member of Killingly’s Gymnastic team. She will perform in the 7-10 meets the school hopes to fit in this season. She hopes her team will make it to the States and the Open.