Meets 7-9: Boyd leads Centaurs to season-high score
The Woodstock Academy gymnastics team had been stuck around 133 when it came to team scoring for the last several meets.
That’s good, but certainly not a guarantee of success as the postseason approaches.
The Centaurs easily eclipsed that number on Saturday when they downed Killingly 137.45-132.0 at Deary’s Gymnastics in Danielson.
What happened to suddenly boost the Woodstock Academy score to the season high?
“Allie Boyd happened,” Centaurs coach Kasey Tocchio said. “That girl has been on fire. She has such drive behind her this year. We all know she has talent and that she still has more in her. She has really worked hard to pull it out. Her start values and scores jumped tremendously (Saturday). I let her know that a lot of the points were hers.”
The sophomore finished with a 34.15 total including a 9.0 on the beam and an 8.5 on the vault.
Classmate Olivia Aleman still led the Centaurs in scoring as she finished second in the All-Around with a 36.85 total. The sophomore finished first in vault (9.45) and floor (9.4) and third on bars (9.15).
“She’s been a great top scorer for us and contributed a lot so, yeah, (Saturday) was fun,” Tocchio said with a laugh.
Freshman Julia Kerr also contributed a third-place finish in the beam with a 9.15.
The Centaurs are now 6-1 in the Eastern Connecticut Conference as they also received a forfeit victory over East Lyme. Killingly is now 5-2 and both teams have just one meet remaining against Norwich Free Academy on Monday.
“This is where we want to be now. Our start was a little shaky and we were not sure where we were going to be but I think kids like Olivia, who have been on championship teams before, were like ‘OK, this is not us. We have to get back to where we were.’ I feel we’re back to being a normal Woodstock Academy team and are believing in ourselves. We’re ready to go,” Tocchio said.
It’s good timing for that as the ECC Championship meet, where the Centaurs will be looking to make it 13 straight titles, takes place Sunday at 1 p.m. at Thames Valley Gymnastics in Norwich.
The Centaurs did fall to 7-2 overall as they lost Saturday to non-league foe, Daniel Hand from Madison, in the tri-meet.
Hand’s Morgan Flickinger was the top All-Around performer with a 36.95 total to lead the Tigers to a 139.2 total.
“They have really good depth,” Tocchio said of Daniel Hand. “They look good this year. (Daniel Hand coach) Kelly (Smith) had wanted to come up and go head-to-head before States to see just where we lie. You never know what judges on the other side of the state are judging so it was fun to see where our teams are. We have some room to grow so who knows.”
Where teams will be placed in a state division has not been determined as of yet so Tocchio is not sure if they will meet up with the Tigers in the state class championship.
