After a season of hard work, the Yorkton Springers Gymnastics Club wrapped up their 2013 Gymnastics season at Provincials. Ten girls competed in the final event, all competing in a new level for the first year this season, providing some new challenges that required hard work from the gymnasts and the coaching staff.
"With all of our gymnasts advancing to different categories, it was a lot of work to learn the specific new skills that are added as the divisions change which required a lot of effort from our team as well as our coaches," the Springers coaching staff explains. "We start out our year with cardio and individual skills and work our way up to the specific movements one by one, so having to learn the moves this year rather than in last season where most of our gymnasts were in their second or third years in their categories when it is just fine tuning was a different challenge for us, but we all worked hard as coaches and the students matched that effort and really grew over the year" say the coaches.
The Springers team went all over the province in 2013, competing in Yorkton, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert and Lloydminster as well as their practices which are generally up to three hours long, requiring a tremendous amount of dedication from parents, coaches and the gymnasts in a sport which requires incredible attention to detail to master aerial maneuvers while landing gracefully. That hard work paid off as the Springers won five medals at 2013 Provincials, an impressive feat considering everyone of their athletes was competing with the disadvantage of being in their first year at a new level of competition.
All of the Springers medal wins came in the All Around discipline showing the hard work of the Springers team to learn a new array of skills and continue to master them. Silver medals were won by Brittany Schofer (Provincial 4), Cassidy Stachewich (Provincial 3), and Jayden Jarvis (Provincial 2).
Rounding out the medal haul were Kiara Lutz and Sidney Shyiak with bronze medals. Shyiak joined Jarvis on the Provincial 2 all around podium with her bronze while Kiara Lutz was the best Springers performer at the Provincial 1 level, finishing third while Kaybrie Lutz came close to the podium as well with a fifth place performance in the All Around.
Other Springs competitors were Brynn Jarvis, (8th All Around, Provincial 2) Sierra Cook (7th All Around Provincial 3) Bryn Nystrom, (6th All Around, Provincial 3) Shalysa Brown (6th All Around, Provincial 2) and Emily Zajac (10th All Around, Provincial 2).
Springers coaches were extremely happy with the way their season went this year, noting that they had a very dedicated group of gymnasts who embraced the challenge of learning new things with a positive attitude. "All of the girls didn't have to learn the new moves and skills if they didn't want to and we told them that from the start, but they all wanted to and worked hard and you could see improvement throughout the season from each one of the gymnasts by the time the end of the competition season came around" concludes the coaches.
Springers will close out with open gym sessions for their students before hosting camps in the Yorkton area over the summer as their season winds down and the club would like to thank the parents and volunteers who help run their Yorkton event for all their work on making another season possible for the club.
