Coming into this year, the expectations of the gymnastics team were not that high. After being demoted into the NGLA B Division, it looked to be more of a rebuilding season more than anything else.

Clearly this team was underestimated.

In the first meet of the season, a dual meet against both Randolph and Ramapo on Sept. 15, the team scored a 100.125. While that was not enough to beat either of its opponents, it is a whole point higher than the best score posted by the team last season. And going into the third event, Pascack Valley was actually in first place.

The meet despite the loss to both Ramapo and Randolph proved to be Dean’s shining moment as she posted the highest all-around score of the meet. After only competing with Pascack for the second half of the varsity season last year, she scored her personal best of 34.425.

The real coming out party for the team though was winning the team championship at the Wayne Hills Classic last Saturday at Wayne Hills High School. The team beat Ramapo 106.7-103.7, breaking triple digits once again. Freshman Melissa Ricciardi tied the meet record of a 9.3 on beam, which was set by Pascack’s own Kaila Solomon in 2010. Dean continued with her strong showing coming in fifth on both vault and floor.

The team’s performance was enough to earn them spot number three in The Record’s “Super Six” gymnastics ranking, a very prestigious list among high school gymnasts in the area. The team was previously unranked all season until this week.

On Monday, the girls traveled to Wayne Valley and won posting their third triple digit score of the year, 101.4, beating the Indians of Wayne Valley.

This Week: Monday, the team travels to West Milford to face the Highlanders at 5 p.m., that is the only meet of the week.