By Miranda Holloway
Executive Online Editor
Sophomore Gianna Scala had a lot of waiting to do at the Girls’ Gymnastics State Championship Feb. 18. Scala qualified for the floor event final, the last of the four events to go on the last night of championships. Scala watched the vault, bars and beam finals before it was finally her turn, which was both nerve-wracking and exciting.
“Waiting makes me a little nervous,” Scala said. “It just got me excited watching everyone compete and being like ‘O.K in a few more minutes I get to do the same thing,”
Scala qualified for state in the all-around, beam and floor competitions. The first night of competition served as event competition prelims and all-around finals. Scala scored a 36.725 in the all-around which left her in sixteenth place, her 9.525 on floor put her in seventh place and qualified her for the finals.
The next night she improved her score to a 9.55 leading her to a fifth place medal and tie with Carmel Catholic junior Lauren Feely.
Senior Lauren Johnson and junior Meggie Kania also qualified for the state meet, with Johnson qualifying on bars and Kania qualifying on beam. They scored a 9.125 and an 8.825 respectively. While this was not enough to put them in the finals, they stayed with Scala, waiting for her turn on the floor.
“They stayed with me the whole time and talked to me,” Scala said. “If they saw that I was nervous they would give me a little pep talk.. about how I could do it and stuff. They were really supportive.”
In the future, Scala hopes to make finals on more events, but this year she is happy with her results. She was unsure about what the season would bring after she suffered a sprained her medial collateral ligament in her left knee during the regular season. As the competition went on Scala’s sights were set more realistically on her chances for the podium.
“I wasn’t expecting to place this year I was just excited to make it to finals. Then I knew going into it that I was maybe going to have a shot for one and it actually happened,” Scala said. “When a Palatine coach came for me and said ‘we are going to need you for the awards’ I got really excited that I was going to be up on the podium. It was a great feeling, I was just really proud of myself.”
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