Ella Competes at the State Gymnastics Meet

Ella wrapped up her Level 4 meet season today by competing in the State gymnastics meet at the Tacoma Convention Center.  This was her third year competing in this important meet and I truly love attending it and cheering her on.  Unfortunately, Ella was assigned to the last session which meant that she would be competing from 6 to 9:30 pm on Sunday night with an award ceremony that would last until 10 p.m.  Since it was so late, Ron decided that he couldn't go as it would mean that he would get to bed too late with work the next morning.  Luckily, I was able to convince Logan to go with me and be my videographer while I took pictures of all of Ella's events.  It was so nice to have his company throughout the evening and to get his help recording all of Ella's events on video.  

As for Ella, she had the meet of a lifetime!  She PR'd in all four events and got an overall score of 37.275.  Her individual events scores were:  Bars 9.5, Beam 9.0, Floor 9.225, and Vault 9.55.  This was such a huge accomplishment for her, and also so wonderful that she was able to do this at the most important meet of the season.  Sadly, she came in 13th place in her age group which meant that she didn't receive a medal at the ceremony since only the top 10 gymnasts placed in each group.  What is so frustrating about this is that receiving a medal depends 100% on the scores of the other gymnasts assigned to an age group, and Ella happened to be with an extremely competitive group of girls.  After looking it up online last night, I discovered that if Ella had competed in three other Level 4 sessions that day, she would have medaled and gotten either 5th, 6th, or 7th place.  Sadly, that was not her reality and so we are just choosing to focus on what an amazing job she did.  Well done, Ella!  We are so proud of you!

Ella and the rest of her Level 4 teammates waiting to be introduced to the crowd at the beginning of the meet.

Waving to the crowd after their gym was announced.

Ella's first event was the vault.  Here she is jumping off of the springboard.

Going into her front handspring...

and over the vault.

Ella landing it,

and saluting to the judges.

Ella's second event was the bars.  Here she is doing a cast...

and an undershoot.

Ella doing a tap swing.

Ella's third event was the beam.  Here she is going into her cartwheel...

and landing it!

Ella going into her handstand.

Doing a scale.

Doing her dismount!

Ella's final event was on floor.  Ella doing her back extension roll...

and a high kick.

Coming out of a dramatic pose.

Ella in the splits.

Landing from her round off, back handspring.

Ella's team came in second place for her session.  Here she is with her teammates receiving the second place trophy.

Ella and two of her closest buddies, Harper and Ava, after the meet was over.