South’s womens’ gymnastics team started off their sesason against Deerfield winning 143.5-136.44. The team has been preparing for future meets under the supervision of head coach Steve Gale.

Varsity has come back in good condition; and everyone is excited to be part of the team, according to senior Katie Wahl. Wahl, who has been on the team for all four years of her high school career, says she is happy to be back.

“[I love] overcoming every challenge, the feeling of flying through the air,” Wahl said. “It’s the closest you can get [to flying].There’s always something new to learn, always something to improve on.”

Similarly, junior Bebe Haramaras, who has been on the team all three years of high school, says that the energy all the gymnasts feel while competing is what she enjoys most about the sport. In one word, the team is talented, according to Wahl.

“All around, everyone looked like they belonged, everyone does, they push at every level,” Wahl said.

On Dec. 1, the team had their first meet against Deerfield High School at home, according to Gale. The Freshmen team and the Varsity team won, but the Junior Varsity team lost, Gale said. Beam was the highest-scoring, according to Gale; lowest-scoring was bars. The other two events were floor and vault.

“We won all four events and our overall score was 143.5 points, which is an exceptionally good score for this early in the season,” Gale said. “Deerfield finished with 136 points, which would normally beat us in this part of the season.”

Five gymnasts performed in the meet, according to Gale: senior Hannah Hartley,  Juniors Haramaras, and  Kylie Kruger, and sophomores Sarah Healy and Chloe Nourbash. Hartley won first in all four events, and Haramaras won second.

Looking forward, the team hopes to improve for the rest of the season. They can do so by staying focused, motivating each other, and recognizing that gymnastics is a team sport rather than an individual sport, according to Haramaras.

“[The team] is really motivating,” Haramaras said. “Everyone wants that victory or state, and you have to motivate the team or else you won’t get anywhere.”

This can be achieved, according to Haramaras, by working hard together and altogether improving the basic skills.

Wahl said, “there are always more skills to get, legs that could be straighter […] just cleaning everything up,”

The goal of this season is to win State, according to Gale; State is the highest level of competition for GBS. For now, the team plans to focus on the next meet and improve one step at a time, without thinking too far ahead.

On Dec. 9, the team competed in an invite hosted by GBN and ended up winning the meet. According to Haramaras, it ended up being a good meet all around.

“I think we did really well, obviously we had some shake ups throughout the meet, but we recovered and actually hit on all four events,” Haramaras said. “No matter what happened, we just stayed positive and kept going, and I think that’s what’s important.”

According to Haramaras, the meet gave them the motivation and push to do well in other meets.

“It [gave] us confidence and [tells]us what we need to work on for future meets,” Haramaras said. “So we can look at this like a review [for the future], and just figure out what we need to do for the next meet.”

According to Haramas, there have been some injuries on the team but they are excited to see how their upcoming meets go once everyone is recovered.

“It’ll be exciting to see what we bring to the competition floor once everyone is healed,” Haramaras said. “All of us have really been working hard, so I’m looking forward to our future accomplishments.”