Tigerfish Qualify for Tourney

The Gloucester/Ipswich Tigerfish varsity gymnastics team, who were seeded 7th at the North Sectionals, competed this past Saturday and with a 3rd place finish, they have now qualified for the State meet which will be held on March 3,2010 at the DCU Center in Worcester. This is a first for a gymnastic team at GHS They will be competing on the same podium as the American Cup gymnastics event that will be held the same week consisting of many of the USA men’s and women’s Olympic team members.

The team scored a total of over 140.0 for the meet and were up against 11 of the best teams in the North. Please see Boston Globe article below.

Boston Globe 2/21/10

North Sectional - After graduating just one member of last year's squad, Danvers coach Heather Boepple knew her Falcons would be a force come tournament time.

The top-seeded Falcons, who missed qualifying for the state championship by one spot a year ago, captured the North title and stamped their ticket to this year's big dance.

"We knew we were pretty deep. We're strong all around,'' said Boepple. "We got some great individual performances and that was enough. After just missing last year, it's nice to win out. I'm so proud of them.''

Danvers totaled 141.025 points, finishing first on the balance beam (36.075), second in vault (35.225) and uneven bars (34.775), and seventh in the floor exercise (34.95).

Shannon Kidger finished third in the individual all-around (36.3) and finished first in the beam (9.525).

Joining Danvers at the state championships will be North Andover (140.7), Gloucester (140.125), and Chelmsford (140.05).

Gloucester's third-place finish was the surprise of the day. The Fishermen, who had never qualified for the state meet, entered as the seventh seed. With only seven gymnasts, they were the smallest team in attendance.

"We knew we had a shot to qualify,'' said first-year coach Helen Bess. "At this stage, so little separates all the teams competing. Plus, we'd beaten several of the teams seeded higher than us. So we knew we had a chance. That said, we were shooting for fourth. Third was a nice surprise.''

Leading the way was senior Liana Jaeger, who won the all-around with a 37.225 score. Jaeger finished no worse than fourth in any event.