BELLEVUE — “No crying!” Sammamish coach Jenny Genoway hollered at her teary-eyed gymnasts as they hugged and celebrated Thursday night moments after winning their second consecutive Class 3A/2A state gymnastics title in their home gym.
“I lose my marbles and cry all the time,” said Genoway, in her third season as head coach and 30th year on the Sammamish coaching staff under local legend Jerry Penney. “I cried at our last practice, at our last regular-season meet. So they told me to keep it together tonight, and now they’re the ones crying.”
Not that she was complaining.
“This is a little insane,” Genoway said. “Because of the snow days and sickness and injuries, we haven’t had our whole lineup with our whole potential once this year.
“It’s been the running joke all season: ‘Hey, maybe by state we’ll get our full lineup together.’ Can we finally get everybody healthy at one time? Tonight we had everybody here and they threw their big tricks, and it was the first time all season.”
Sammamish had the evening’s top scores in three events, and junior Seema Borgmann repeated as all-around champion with a score of 37.85, followed by senior teammate Micah Laughary (37.175). Daisey Penney of Lake Washington (no relation to Jerry Penney) took third (36.775).
Mead placed second at 174.4, followed by Lake Washington (172.975), Ballard (172.65) and Bainbridge (162.875).
Borgmann elicited the loudest roar of the night when she posted a 9.65 on vault with an eye-popping Yurchenko maneuver (a roundoff back handspring with a twist off the vault). Borgmann’s lines were so clean Genoway waved her off the runway before her second attempt. “We’re done,” Genoway shouted.
Borgmann fell during twice attempting the same vault a week earlier at the district meet.
“It was nerve-wracking to have to come off of that into state and not be so sharp,” she said. “But tonight I was able to spot the landing and be done. It was an amazing feeling to pull that off, not only for myself but also for the team.”
Sammamish senior Aiko Hirai placed eighth in all-around (35.925) and posted the meet’s fifth-highest vault score (9.275). Laughary put up the night’s top scores on bars (9.5) and floor (9.575). Ava Enriquez of Shorewood tied Laughary with a 9.575 on floor. Nicole Kildal of Ballard finished second on beam (9.35).
Jade Bereman of Bainbridge placed third on vault (9.325) and Shannon McDonald of Sammamish was third on beam (9.325), followed by Emma Kramp of Juanita (9.3). Berkley Gorre of Shorecrest was third on bars (9.325). Julia Carter of Enumclaw was fourth on vault. Individual 3A/2A finals are Friday at noon.
Genoway will lose five seniors from this squad. “This has been the most selfless team,” she said. “They truly want what’s best for the team, and that’s been their focus the entire year. If another girl has a bigger, better skill, they’ve willingly taken themselves out of the lineup for that girl to have her moment to shine. They’re happy to do it.
“The girls kept learning new tricks late in the season, and I told them they were going to give me a heart attack because I can’t figure out what our lineup is because no one is doing the same thing from day to day. Aiko and Micah did double-backs for the first time today. It’s been exciting.”