On Jan. 14, H-F Girls’ Gymnastics earned its season-high score of 133.40 against Morton: the cherry on top for their regular season and a sweet ending to their senior night. They finished their season with a 3-2 record with wins over Andrew, Riverside-Brookfield and Morton.
In their senior night victory, the team was led by sophomore Olivia Davis-Fields, senior Morgan Haynes and sophomore Autumn Kizer, with 34.75, 33.60 and 33.10 all-around points, respectively.
The night highlighted the three senior gymnasts: Haynes, Makayla Marr and Christian Milla.
Team captain Haynes has been a positive influence on the team this season, according to varsity assistant coach and junior varsity head coach Robert Chapel. “As far as gymnastics, team leadership [and] knowledge go, she’s the pinnacle of our team this year. She is the go-to person. You can say, ‘Morgan, lead the team in warm-ups,’ and Morgan’s gonna do that, and it’s gonna be a high-quality job on her part,” Chapel stated.
As the team’s leader, Haynes hopes she has instilled strong motivation in her younger teammates, as gymnastics can erode one’s will to persevere. “As you kind of understand how [high school gymnastic scoring] works, you kind of learn what you’re able to do, what you’re comfortable doing and how that can contribute to higher scores. So, I definitely want [them] to just keep that motivation inside of [them] because it gets better as the years go by,” Haynes explained.
With only three seniors, and only one of them healthy for the entirety of the season, the underclassmen have been fundamental to the team’s success this year, especially in light of the numerous injuries that have overcome many of the gymnasts. “Some of the low points [have been] a broken arm, not even at practice, a concussion, not at practice,” Chapel elaborated.
However, he commended the team for how they have handled these throughout the year. “I would say how we’ve dealt with that is that our girls are resilient. So we have other girls who are like, “Hey, this girl broke her arm, so she’s not competing. Well, now I need to step up, and I need to fill that role,” Chapel extolled.
Despite the combined challenge of a small team size with numerous injuries, you could never tell that the team was dealing with anything of the sort. The chemistry is evident at their meets, and the support and the “next gymnast up” mentality that emanate are substantial.
This is only one aspect of the team’s strong chemistry. During meets, in a sport where failure occurs more than success, support from teammates is of the utmost importance. “We’re all very, very supportive of each other because we all understand where we’re coming from. Some of us [have] competed with each other since we were younger, so we know each other very, very well,” Haynes said.
Haynes delved further into the community of the team stating, “There’ll be moments [when] we’re at practice [and] someone’s having a rough practice, we’ll kind of just all take a second, take a deep breath, talk about what we’re doing, talk about what we want to do, and just motivate each other.”
She even experienced this firsthand during the senior night meet against Morton, when her teammate talked her up while she was having a mental lapse. “It’s a lot easier to overcome these mental blocks like struggles with your team members as opposed to just doing it alone,” Haynes reflected.
Looking beyond this season-high score, any potential postseason success and into next year, Chapel is hopeful and confident that the team will score even higher, given that they had only one consistently healthy senior this year.
Their team is young, and they have clear potential, as Davis-Fields and Kizer are already top scorers this season. This season seems to be a positive turning point for H-F Gymnastics, and the team looks forward to continuing to develop its young talent for years to come.
