Oakland Catholic\u2019s Madeleine Wingerter took home the all-around title at the WPIAL gymnastics championships Saturday at Moon. Thomas Jefferson, meanwhile, was crowned the team champion for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n
Wingerter used three second-place finishes to claim the Advanced Division championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really shocked,\u201d Wingerter said, \u201cbut it feels really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
She scored a 9.4 on the balance beam, which she believed was her strongest event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I stuck my beam routine,\u201d Wingerter said. \u201cI\u2019ve been struggling with that through practice, but it felt really good to finally stick it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wingerter had the second-best score in her floor routine (9.45) and on the bars (9.178), the latter of which came as a surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has really been a struggle,\u201d she said. \u201c(The bars are) my worst event, I would say \u2026 just my endurance. I mean, I\u2019ve been getting tired mid-routine, but (I\u2019ve) been working hard, so (I) pulled it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wingerter (37.145) bested Freeport\u2019s Andie Ehalt (36.7), Central Valley\u2019s Bria Zelesnik (36.605) and North Allegheny\u2019s Hannah Seidl (36.5), Mt. Lebanon\u2019s Meghan Dunn (36.292) and Burrell\u2019s Syndaya Miller (36.225).<\/p>\n
Defending champion Olivia Kovatch of Mt. Pleasant won the floor exercise with a score of 9.475. She ended up 12th in the all-around.<\/p>\n
Ehalt won the bars (9.675),Zelesnik took gold in the beam (9.475) and Thomas Jefferson\u2019s Adam Wilson was first in the vault (9.90).<\/p>\n
Wingerter was Oakland Catholic\u2019s lone representative at Saturday\u2019s event, but she trains with a bigger group under coaches Jodie Cummings, Becky Revo and Kristen Weber.<\/p>\n
Cummings, Revo and Weber direct a group of gymnasts from Baldwin, Thomas Jefferson, Oakland Catholic, Upper St. Clair, Bethel Park and Steel Valley. In addition to coaching the all-around champion, they also coached Thomas Jefferson to its second consecutive team title and fourth overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids have put a lot of hard work in,\u201d Cummings said. \u201cIt\u2019s not been an easy road. This year we have a younger team, so we\u2019ve had to put a lot of hard work in, and their hard work has proven that they are No. 1 two years in a row. It\u2019s a big accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Weber, \u201cThe competition was really tough. We truly didn\u2019t know if this was going to happen. And this was a moment to moment, and the girls rose to the occasion \u2013 and guys \u2013 and did what they needed to do. So we\u2019re extremely proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the top individual performances from Thomas Jefferson included a first-place finish in the vault by Wilson and a fifth-place finish in the floor by Victoria Coughenour (9.1)<\/p>\n
The Jaguars (142.209) edged out the regular season Section 1 and 2 champions Central Valley (140.887) and North Allegheny (140.525) on their way to their fourth title in the last eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe teach our kids, you know, to go into every meet with a good attitude, good head on your shoulders, and try to hit four for four,\u201d Cummings said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s what it all comes down to, is if you can hit four for four and keep your kids levelheaded, they can accomplish everything they need to do and stay focused.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland Catholic\u2019s Madeleine Wingerter took home the all-around title at the WPIAL gymnastics championships Saturday at Moon. Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-168848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-oakland","9":"tag-oakland-headlines","10":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}