PVRG wins second straight county title
Teamwork.
The key characteristic that led the Pascack Valley Regional Gymnastics team (PVRG) to put together another successful year.
For the second straight year, PVRG won the Bergen County title in Ridgewood, edging out second place Holy Angels for the title on Oct. 23.
“I really feel that this might have been the best season out of my four years of being on the team,” senior gymnast Amanda Solda said. “We did really well during the regular season [and] we won counties for the second year in a row. We also had a high of four people qualify for states.”
After losing key seniors from last year, PVRG was not sure how its season was going to pan out. However, despite the loss of gymnasts, the team was able to have another big year with new leaders stepping up.
“We lost some very important gymnasts at the end of last season and we didn’t necessarily gain many more bodies, but we definitely gained new leaders.” coach Emma Trentacosti said. “Solda took care of a lot and was an ally to the coaches as well as to her teammates.”
Captains Maya Horowitz, Hallie Wikfors, and Solda stepped up this year to help lead PVRG to another county title. Solda specifically was able to make a sizeable impact on the rest of the team.
“In our sophomore class, we had some gymnasts like Gabrielle Sandt and Jolie Bellaff,” Trentacosti said. “They definitely stepped up and competed a lot more than last year. Also Kate Ng really worked hard in terms of competition and in her competitive skills; she really stepped up there.”
PVRG also had to face external challenges going into the season, as multiple new teams were added to the league, providing additional competition for the team.
“They turned out to be real competitors for us,” Trentacosti said. “We knew that we were really going to have to put up the best lineups that we could in order to compete the best we can.”
Trentacosti said that Roxbury stood out as one of the toughest newly-added teams to compete against. PVRG’s schedule was also noticeably more difficult in the middle of the season than it was at the end, throwing the girls for a loop at times.
“[The schedule’s imbalance] kind of threw our girls through a hurdle, and there was some inconsistency in our competitive spirit throughout the season,” Trentacosti said.
However, PVRG prepared for the worst while still keeping a good mindset.
“We had to overcome some mental blocks,” junior gymnast Reese Driscoll said. “When there were mistakes in an event, keeping a positive attitude throughout the rest of the meet was something we needed to improve [upon].”
By the end of the season, PVRG was able to overcome all of its obstacles en route to claiming its second straight county title.
“I think we really pulled it together by the end of the season and that showed in our success in the county tournament,” Trentacosti said.
On top of winning the county title, PVRG placed third as a team in sectionals and had four gymnasts qualify for sectionals from an individual standpoint: Solda and Wikfors qualified for floor, Horowitz qualified for bars and beam, and junior Ashley Lowe qualified for beam.
Moving forward after its successful season, the team is now looking to improve and perform even better next year.
“The main goals for next year’s returning gymnasts are to keep a positive mindset for the season and to do the best we can at each meet,” Driscoll said.
