During Bellevue’s warmup on the vault in Saturday’s KingCo league championship meet, junior Emylie Chinen raced towards the vault, made her leap and came crashing down, violently smacking the back of her head on the mat in the process.
It took a few minutes and some encouragement from her teammates to shake it off. She then proceeded to nail a 9.350 vault to become the KingCo 3A/2A champion – and help lead the Wolverines to a second-place finish and a team berth to this week’s district meet at Sammamish.
Chinen – who also finished third in the bars, the floor routine and the all-around – was battling the effects of mononucleosis during the meet. But she didn’t let the sickness or a nasty tumble during warmups get in the way during her big vault.
“I hadn’t practiced the vault in over two weeks,” she said. “I was not expecting it to be good at all.”
Chinen was part of a Bellevue trio whose performances Saturday pushed the team to second place. Fellow juniors Emily Lopez and Jackie Hamilton turned several high finishes for the Wolverines. Hamilton finished in the top five in the vault, bars and beam, while Lopez’s score of 9.525 on the floor routine would prove to be the highest of the entire day, including the 4A meet.
“I thought I had done pretty well,” Lopez said, explaining the expression of shock on her face after being named the KingCo 3A/2A floor champion. “But I was surprised that it was the best though.”
Thanks to her third place finish in vault (8.525), a second place finish in bars (8.225) and a tie for fifth in beam (9.050), Lopez finished second in all-around with a score of 35.325. She came up just short to Mount Si’s Georgia Reynolds, whose 36.500 helped her claim the all-around title – and helped the Wildcats take the team title. Interlake finished fifth in the event while Sammamish finished sixth.
“Today were some of the best routines I’ve seen all year,” said Wolverines coach Hannah Holt of her team’s performance. “I’m just very proud of the whole team. They’ve worked hard and I think we do deserve to go to districts as a team.”
Bellevue’s big three (Chinen, Lopez and Hamilton) certainly paved the way for the Wolverines. The trio, all former club gymnasts, joined the high school team this season after a year away from the sport after a laundry list of injuries took their toll.
“We’ve been kind of tip-toeing through the woods with them because of their past experiences with club two years ago,” Holt said. “We’ve just been trying to keep them healthy, not pushing them too much so that they can be raring to go at the end of the season.”
Several individual performers from all three city schools made the district meet (see below for the complete list). Sammamish’s Caitlin Lawyer was the only city gymnast to qualify in the all-around after taking seventh (31.00) on Saturday.
Woodinville won its fourth straight KingCo championship in the 4A meet. Newport finished in sixth place. Kristine Wong was the only Knight to finish in the top three in an event. She took third in the beam with a score of 9.35.
City top-10 finishes
Vault – Emylie Chinen, Bellevue (1), Emily Lopez, Bellevue (3), Jackie Hamilton, Bellevue (Tied, 5); Olivia Domini, Interlake (Tied, 6); Michelle Domini, Interlake (10).
Bars – Emily Lopez, Bellevue (2); Emylie Chinen, Bellevue (3); Jackie Hamilton, Bellevue (4); Caitlin Lawyer, Sammamish (8).
Beam – Jackie Hamilton, Bellevue (4); Emily Lopez, Bellevue (Tied, 5); Emylie Chinen, Bellevue (7).
Floor – Emily Lopez, Bellevue (1); Emylie Chinen, Bellevue (3); Jackie Hamilton, Bellevue (6); Caitlin Lawyer, Sammamish (7); Emily Cooper, Interlake (10)
District team qualifiers
Mount Si, Bellevue
City individual qualifiers
All-around – Caitlin Lawyer, Sammamish
City single event qualifiers
Vault – Olivia Domini, Interlake; Michelle Domini, Interlake; Zoe Fernyhough, Interlake; Emily Cooper, Interlake; Shaniqua Clark, Interlake; Taya Hnateyko, Sammamish; Dyna Kim, Sammamish; Brooke Niemann, Interlake.
Bars – Olivia Domini, Interlake; Michelle Domini, Interlake; Emily Nassif, Sammamish; Sarah Lane, Interlake; Kat Gees, Interlake; Taya Hnateyko, Sammamish; Emily Cooper, Interlake; Brooke Niemann, Interlake; Eli Alzate, Sammamish.
Beam – Emily Cooper, Interlake; Shaniqua Clark, Interlake; Sarah Lane, Interlake; Zoe Fernyhough, Interlake; Olivia Domini, Interlake; Michelle Domini, Interlake; Kayla Litterell, Sammamish; Dyna Kim, Sammamish.
Floor – Emily Cooper, Interlake; Olivia Domini, Interlake; Michelle Domini, Interlake; Morgan Akana, Sammamish; Shaniqua Clark, Interlake; Zoe Fernyhough, Interlake; Dyna Kim, Sammamish; Emily Nassif, Sammamish; Taya Hnateyko, Sammamish.
KingCo 4A city top-3 finishers
Beam – Kristine Wong, Newport (3)
