This year’s gymnastics team consisted of five returning gymnasts as well as several new gymnasts who competed in 11 different meets in many different places this year.

“In comparison to last year, this season has gone very well,” sophomore Ally Olsen said. “We have all improved as a team and individually.”

Throughout the season, each individual realized their strengths and weaknesses that they needed to work on in order to compete better.

“We realized we had to focus more on routines opposed to new skills because perfecting our dance would be more beneficial to our scores,” Olsen said. “Though, we do still work on new skills often to higher the value of our routines.”

Like any team, the gymnasts struggled at first as they had to get used to the larger number of athletes. Even though it seemed as though it would be difficult to get to know everyone else, they managed to become more of a team.

“It has been more difficult this year to become more of a team because it’s larger than last years team, but we all managed to bond,” sophomore Nina Carey said.

Along with a much larger team this year, they were also managing the fact that the team combined both Antioch and Lakes athletes.

“Being combined with Lakes isn’t very difficult and we don’t see each other as rivals because we all work together and come together as a team,” Carey said.

For next year, the current gymnasts look to improve on some of the things they struggled with in order to advance their skills further.

“Some weaknesses of the team are the mental blocks everybody faces,” Olsen said. “This makes it hard to learn new skills and get higher scores.”

However, the team is optimistic that they will compete even better next year while supporting and cheering one another on.