From the Wicked Local Walpole website:

   The cozy little gym on Merchants Drive is now known as Paradise Gymnastics Academy, but don’t tell that to high school teams coming in from the Bay State Conference.
   Instead of Paradise, it will be a nightmare for them once more as the Walpole Rebels defend their conference championship and once again seek a berth in the sectional and state meets at the end of the year.
   Last year the Rebels had a season so fantastic that it was the best in the history of the program at Walpole High.
   By the end of the season, every individual team record had fallen thanks to Kady Sullivan, now at Div. 1 Towson University, as did every team record.
   The Rebels finished seventh overall at the sectional championship meet in Hudson last year, with Sullivan winning the vault with a mark of 9.6. This year, the Rebels might be even better.
Last year’s team had a lot of depth with freshman Amanda Carney and junior Kerry Clark, both Level 10 gymnasts, as was Sullivan.
   That allowed Coach Inez May and long-time assistant Coach Wendy Lewis to experiment with their lineup, getting everyone experience, and to assure no faltering en route to an 8-0 record and victory at the conference meet, toppling defending champion Framingham for the second time. The Rebels had earlier invaded the Flyer gym in Framingham and won the dual meet, 136.8 to 135.05.
   Sullivan has moved on, but taking her place is top Level 10 gymnast Kesley Cofsky who, like Sullivan, yearned for a chance to proudly compete for her high school senior year and was able to work out the schedule between her private school and the Rebels.
   Like Sullivan Cofsky got off to a roaring start, stealing Sully’s floor record in her first try with a 9.65 at Paradise December 16.
   The nightmarish part for the rest of the league and probably the state is that Sullivan, an All-Scholastic, was ably replaced with all the rest of the pieces of the puzzle still in place.
Clark was out with a wrist injury to start the season and the Rebels still cruised past Needham in the opener, 129.35 to 107.15. Jess Olson was out with a concussion, Lauren Kemple was benched by illness and a subpar Carney competed shortly after getting over mononucleosis. A healthy team would have been well into the 130’s, and by season’s end, this group should be topping 140, a mark reached by elite teams like state champion Barnstable, which scored 146.1 in the state meet.
   One reason why the team is virtually unstoppable (only Wellesley has a shot this year in the BSC) is that everyone back from last year has improved greatly. Another is the addition of Cofsky. The third is the addition of two talented freshmen in Sydney Gillis and Ashley Canter, both of whom bear watching the next four years.
   In the past a mark in the low sevens would have easily scored for Walpole, now in most events anything below an eight could be close, but not close enough.
   The thing that keeps powers like Barnstable, which scored a 144.6 in last year’s sectional, and Shrewsbury where they are is a slew of top-notch competitors that allow the teams to reload and keep team scores high in each event. Having at least two all-arounds who can score 35 or better in a meet is key and the Rebels have that in Cofsky, Clark and Carney. They also have Kelly Meredith, who scored a 29.7 in the all-around against Needham, and a handful of others with the skills to compete in all four events.
   “This is going to be a fun year,” remarks May. “A lot of girls are doing very well, and there’s a lot of great support and chemistry in this group.”
   The team starts out with its hard-working senior captains, Sue Conroy and Allie Jenks.
Both are responsible leaders, and Conroy brings big game experience and the maturity associated with being part of the sectional champion field hockey team.
    Despite concentrating on field hockey all fall, Conroy returned to up her beam score from 4.0 to 5.25 in the first meet, and should improve drastically in all events she competes. Conroy, however, is not the first Rebel to combine the unusual mix of field hockey and gymnastics. A 1986 grad, Kim Lestan, was second in the state on bars in 1985 for a Walpole team that was in the state meet for the fifth time in six years, as well as a state field hockey champion.
   Jenks also counts beam as her main event and with the non-all-arounds spread out among the four apparatus, there should be no holes to fill once the team regains its collective health.
There are four other seniors, including the two Level 10s. The third senior is diving record holder Jackie Rando, who is strong in both vault and bars, where she scored a personal best 7.85 in last year’s sectionals and started this year off already at 7.6. Another is Meg Crawford, specializing in vault.
   Clark, coming off tendon surgery on her wrist, is in her second year at Level 10 and scores in the high 8’s and 9’s in every event. She scored a 35.2 on all-around back in January.
   Cofsky stepped up and scored a 9.65 on floor to end the Needham meet, breaking the record of 9.5 established by Sullivan on January 31. While Sullivan could leap out of the gym on spring-like legs, giving her unbelievable lift to complete her maneuvers, Cofsky succeeds with a combination of quick fluid moves. Her 9.5 on bars is topped only by Sullivan’s team record of 9.7.
   There are only two juniors, a reason to be thankful for the dynamic frosh that appeared. The first is Morgan Smith, another swim team diver who specializes in floor and vault and the other is Stephanie Habib, an accomplished cheerleader who participated in gymnastics years ago and returned to compete on beam, floor and vault for the Rebels.
   The team has a strong sophomore class, including Carney, Meredith, Olson, Kemple and Jess Byrne.
   Byrne is off to a fine start, upping her beam PR from 7.0 to 7.35 (with no falls) to open the season and Kemple, who also does floor, had a PR of 7.9 on vault last year.
   Meredith had a 7.8 on vault, 7.5 on bars, and 7.6 on floor Dec. 16. When Olsen returns the scores in bars and vault will automatically go up as her PR in both is 8.3.
   Then there’s Carney, whose scores include a 9.5 on vault in the Framingham meet last year.
Added to the mix are Cantor an Gillis, and they shone right away.
   Cantor’s broad smile was irrepressible when she waited to do her floor routine, and she showed a lot of promise with her springs and placement. Her 6.65 score was only a result of starting out with a conservative, simpler routine.
   Gillis, a tall redhead, stepped right into the mix and scored a 7.6 on vault, 7.1 on bars and 6.2 on beam in the opener.
   “Sydney hasn’t competed in a couple of years,” reminds May. “I though she did great, and she can improve on her scores. She was anxiously awaiting to be part of the high school team. She doesn’t even have her routines complete, but she put something quickly together and did it.”
   A conservative estimate of a Rebel team score at full strength would be about a 142, well above the record 140.15 the locals chalked up at least year’s league meet. If they had hit 142 in the sectionals, they would have finished second to state champion Barnstable, and a 142 would have placed them fifth at the state championship.
Welcome to Paradise.
 

Read “Powerful gymnastics team reloaded” on the Wicked Local Walpole website

From the Wicked Local Walpole website:

   The cozy little gym on Merchants Drive is now known as Paradise Gymnastics Academy, but don’t tell that to high school teams coming in from the Bay State Conference.
   Instead of Paradise, it will be a nightmare for them once more as the Walpole Rebels defend their conference championship and once again seek a berth in the sectional and state meets at the end of the year.
   Last year the Rebels had a season so fantastic that it was the best in the history of the program at Walpole High.
   By the end of the season, every individual team record had fallen thanks to Kady Sullivan, now at Div. 1 Towson University, as did every team record.
   The Rebels finished seventh overall at the sectional championship meet in Hudson last year, with Sullivan winning the vault with a mark of 9.6. This year, the Rebels might be even better.
Last year’s team had a lot of depth with freshman Amanda Carney and junior Kerry Clark, both Level 10 gymnasts, as was Sullivan.
   That allowed Coach Inez May and long-time assistant Coach Wendy Lewis to experiment with their lineup, getting everyone experience, and to assure no faltering en route to an 8-0 record and victory at the conference meet, toppling defending champion Framingham for the second time. The Rebels had earlier invaded the Flyer gym in Framingham and won the dual meet, 136.8 to 135.05.
   Sullivan has moved on, but taking her place is top Level 10 gymnast Kesley Cofsky who, like Sullivan, yearned for a chance to proudly compete for her high school senior year and was able to work out the schedule between her private school and the Rebels.
   Like Sullivan Cofsky got off to a roaring start, stealing Sully’s floor record in her first try with a 9.65 at Paradise December 16.
   The nightmarish part for the rest of the league and probably the state is that Sullivan, an All-Scholastic, was ably replaced with all the rest of the pieces of the puzzle still in place.
Clark was out with a wrist injury to start the season and the Rebels still cruised past Needham in the opener, 129.35 to 107.15. Jess Olson was out with a concussion, Lauren Kemple was benched by illness and a subpar Carney competed shortly after getting over mononucleosis. A healthy team would have been well into the 130’s, and by season’s end, this group should be topping 140, a mark reached by elite teams like state champion Barnstable, which scored 146.1 in the state meet.
   One reason why the team is virtually unstoppable (only Wellesley has a shot this year in the BSC) is that everyone back from last year has improved greatly. Another is the addition of Cofsky. The third is the addition of two talented freshmen in Sydney Gillis and Ashley Canter, both of whom bear watching the next four years.
   In the past a mark in the low sevens would have easily scored for Walpole, now in most events anything below an eight could be close, but not close enough.
   The thing that keeps powers like Barnstable, which scored a 144.6 in last year’s sectional, and Shrewsbury where they are is a slew of top-notch competitors that allow the teams to reload and keep team scores high in each event. Having at least two all-arounds who can score 35 or better in a meet is key and the Rebels have that in Cofsky, Clark and Carney. They also have Kelly Meredith, who scored a 29.7 in the all-around against Needham, and a handful of others with the skills to compete in all four events.
   “This is going to be a fun year,” remarks May. “A lot of girls are doing very well, and there’s a lot of great support and chemistry in this group.”
   The team starts out with its hard-working senior captains, Sue Conroy and Allie Jenks.
Both are responsible leaders, and Conroy brings big game experience and the maturity associated with being part of the sectional champion field hockey team.
    Despite concentrating on field hockey all fall, Conroy returned to up her beam score from 4.0 to 5.25 in the first meet, and should improve drastically in all events she competes. Conroy, however, is not the first Rebel to combine the unusual mix of field hockey and gymnastics. A 1986 grad, Kim Lestan, was second in the state on bars in 1985 for a Walpole team that was in the state meet for the fifth time in six years, as well as a state field hockey champion.
   Jenks also counts beam as her main event and with the non-all-arounds spread out among the four apparatus, there should be no holes to fill once the team regains its collective health.
There are four other seniors, including the two Level 10s. The third senior is diving record holder Jackie Rando, who is strong in both vault and bars, where she scored a personal best 7.85 in last year’s sectionals and started this year off already at 7.6. Another is Meg Crawford, specializing in vault.
   Clark, coming off tendon surgery on her wrist, is in her second year at Level 10 and scores in the high 8’s and 9’s in every event. She scored a 35.2 on all-around back in January.
   Cofsky stepped up and scored a 9.65 on floor to end the Needham meet, breaking the record of 9.5 established by Sullivan on January 31. While Sullivan could leap out of the gym on spring-like legs, giving her unbelievable lift to complete her maneuvers, Cofsky succeeds with a combination of quick fluid moves. Her 9.5 on bars is topped only by Sullivan’s team record of 9.7.
   There are only two juniors, a reason to be thankful for the dynamic frosh that appeared. The first is Morgan Smith, another swim team diver who specializes in floor and vault and the other is Stephanie Habib, an accomplished cheerleader who participated in gymnastics years ago and returned to compete on beam, floor and vault for the Rebels.
   The team has a strong sophomore class, including Carney, Meredith, Olson, Kemple and Jess Byrne.
   Byrne is off to a fine start, upping her beam PR from 7.0 to 7.35 (with no falls) to open the season and Kemple, who also does floor, had a PR of 7.9 on vault last year.
   Meredith had a 7.8 on vault, 7.5 on bars, and 7.6 on floor Dec. 16. When Olsen returns the scores in bars and vault will automatically go up as her PR in both is 8.3.
   Then there’s Carney, whose scores include a 9.5 on vault in the Framingham meet last year.
Added to the mix are Cantor an Gillis, and they shone right away.
   Cantor’s broad smile was irrepressible when she waited to do her floor routine, and she showed a lot of promise with her springs and placement. Her 6.65 score was only a result of starting out with a conservative, simpler routine.
   Gillis, a tall redhead, stepped right into the mix and scored a 7.6 on vault, 7.1 on bars and 6.2 on beam in the opener.
   “Sydney hasn’t competed in a couple of years,” reminds May. “I though she did great, and she can improve on her scores. She was anxiously awaiting to be part of the high school team. She doesn’t even have her routines complete, but she put something quickly together and did it.”
   A conservative estimate of a Rebel team score at full strength would be about a 142, well above the record 140.15 the locals chalked up at least year’s league meet. If they had hit 142 in the sectionals, they would have finished second to state champion Barnstable, and a 142 would have placed them fifth at the state championship.
Welcome to Paradise.
 

Read “Powerful gymnastics team reloaded” on the Wicked Local Walpole website