NORTHBORO — For the last few years, Central Catholic had the best all-around gymnast in Massachusetts in Cami Rueda, but Masconomet had come away with a state championship.
On Saturday afternoon at Algonquin Regional, the Raiders flipped the script on the Chieftains and halted their quest for a third straight title.
Masco’s Bella Misiura had the best all-around score on the day, but it was the Raiders’ deep and talented lineup that proved to be too much to overcome en route to the program’s first team championship.
“We are just a deeper team this year and it has made a difference,” Central Catholic coach Heather Fusco said. “We have six gymnasts that can go up and compete in each event and that gives us great flexibility.”
The Chieftains had bested Central last weekend to win the North sectional title. But on Saturday, the Raiders got a key part of their rotation back in Zinnia Hopkinson and it paid huge dividends.
Hopkinson was originally supposed to compete in two events but she would up having scores that were counted in three of the four rotations.
“She definitely was nervous,” Fusco said of Hopkinson. “But she did a great job.”
Masco got off to a fast start on the vault, building a nearly eight tenths of a point lead in a rotation capped by Misiura’s 9.800.
The Raiders stayed close thanks to Hopkinson, Riley Salerno and Sophia Tressler’s scores of 9.300 or better on the uneven bars.
Masco went to the bars in the second rotation and had a huge effort, led by a 9.800 from Misiura and a 9.650 by Ava Nolan. But the Raiders did them better on the beam.
Tressler’s 9.750 along with a 9.475 from Alyson White and a 9.450 by Salerno helped Central cut its deficit in half at the midpoint of the competition.
It wasn’t as if Masco was having a bad day and the powerhouse continued to be solid in the third rotation, but the Raiders were simply in another world.
How good was Central in the third rotation on the floor? White scored a 9.150 and the Raiders didn’t even need to count it as they overtook Masco for first place by .325 points.
The question in the fourth rotation became if Masco could do enough on floor to overtake the Raiders on the vault.
Masco did have all four of its floor scores in the 9.100 range or better. Unfortunately for the Chieftains, it was the Raiders’ day as they lit it up on vault, capped by Tressler’s 9.800 that clinched the championship in style.
Danvers’ Kaylee Wescott and Camryn Donovan had the second and fourth best individual scores of the day and it helped lead the Falcons to third place as a team ahead of Medway and Mansfield.
