Published January 15, 2021
By JENNIFER GENTILE
MELROSE—The Melrose Red Raider gymnastics team started their season off with a narrow loss against the Woburn Tanners last Saturday morning at Woburn High. Melrose compiled a score of 127.15 versus Woburn’s winning score of 129.4 to start their 2021 season off 0-1. On Sunday, they host Winchester in their home opener at the Metro West YMCA in Saugus and will see their meet live streamed on the Melrose High gymnastics YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/c/mhsgymnasticsvideo.
Against Woburn, Melrose enjoyed solid, all-around performances from sophomore Grace Burke and junior captain Lucy Hannon. Burke represented Melrose’s highest event score of the meet with an 8.4 vault, which was Melrose’s strongest event. Hannon had a particularly nice beam event with a score of 8.35.
Competing in the vault for Melrose were senior captain Olivia Hitchman, senior Brooke Heidebrecht, Katherine Carney, Sofia Pitcher, Lucy Hannon and Grace Burke. Melrose was just slightly edged with a score of 32.85 below Woburn’s 33.75.
Representing Melrose in the bars, an event that the Red Raiders won, were freshman Raessler Guthrie, Katherine Carney, Brooke Heidebrecht, Sophia Weissman, Grace Burke and Lucy Hannon.
Melrose fell to the Tanners in the beam, but saw solid performances by freshman Grace Gentile, captain Olivia Hitchman, Grace Burke, captain Caroline Dell Isola, Sophia Weissman and Lucy Hannon.
Rounding out the day in the floor for Melrose was Caroline Dell Isola, Sofia Pitcher, Katherine Carney, Sofia Weissman, Lucy Hannon and Grace Burke. Melrose was slightly edged by the Tanners, 33.15 to 32.3, mostly thanks to the all-around efforts of Woburn’s Sam Jolly, who compiled a 35.15 in scoring, including a 9.3 in vault. Melrose will kick off their home opener this Sunday at 11:30 a.m. at the Metrowest North YMCA in Saugus. Look for a live stream to be broadcast at the YouTube channel listed above.
