In a city with lots of unique athletes, the amount of Olympians to come out of Westfield, Mass., is few and far between. However, the competitive team at the Roots Gymnastics Center is looking to change that.
The gymnasts at this small regional powerhouse will be sending three competitors to the Junior Olympic Eastern National Championships, to be held in Landover, MD on May 3-6. Following a dominant appearance in the Region 6 Gymnastics Championships on April 21 and 22 in Andover, MA, four of the Roots gymnasts qualified for the prestigious event.
Mandy Benoit, 14, of Westfield; Sierra DeMarinis, 12, of Montgomery; and Payton Bellows, 13, of Southwick turned in impressive showings in Middlesex county; while a fourth teammate, Amanda Samuel, 14, of East Granby, Connecticut, barely missed the cut-off to qualify, finishing 7th in the all around competition. In the event of a dropout, Samuel would most likely go to Maryland as well as an alternate.
Benoit, DeMarinis, Bellows and Samuel competed against the top 230 Level 9 gymnasts in Region 6, which includes the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island, as well as New York.
Junior Olympic qualifiers secured their spot on the Region 6 team by placing within the top 6 in the all-around competition in each of their respective age groups.
“The opportunity to participate in such a prestigious event is a tremendous success for each of our athletes and for our program, which has only been offering competitive gymnastics for the past 3 years,” said Steve Pryor, who co-manages the team with his wife, Pam. “This is the program’s first season competing at Level 9 and we are so proud of our athlete’s ability to capitalize on their first opportunity to advance to the national stage.”
Pryor also praised the efforts of the gymnasts who have made all of their success at level 9 possible.A lot of the competitors they face have spent several years at different levels, while our girls have improved rapidly and in increments,” he said, “to say they’ve come a long way is an understatement.”
Regardless of the results of their spring time excursion to the Old Line state, one thing is for certain: gymnastics is about to go big time in Westfield, and the Junior Olympians of Roots Gymnastics will be leading the charge.
