Hannah Holt, one half of the husband/wife coaching duo of Bellevue High School’s gymnastics’ team, couldn’t make the last day of the state meet due to the flu.

But she did have some parting words for her gymnasts. So her husband, Jim Holt, passed along her advice to juniors Emily Lopez and Emilie Chinen.

“She made sure I told them that they had a chance, if they went full-out, that they could win state,” Holt said. “They had a great chance.”

Message received. Chinen took second in the bars with a 9.1 score and Lopez became the first Bellevue gymnast to win a state title by winning both the beam and the floor routine.

Lopez was the third competitor on the beam and laid down a 9.625.

“She just nailed her set,” Holt said. “It was by far the best routine she’s had. When she dismounted it was like dropping a dart into a cork board. It was a fabulous dismount.”

The score would hold up while she was warming up for the floor – where she would score a 9.675 to earn her second state title of the day.

“I thought ‘jeez, that’s a good score,'” Holt said. “‘She could win this too.'”

Lopez scored a 9.1 on the bars, finishing just behind Mount Si’s Georgia Reynolds, who scored a 9.25.

Though Hannah Holt wasn’t able to be at the Exhibition Hall at the Tacoma Dome for the final day, her husband got her on his cell phone and handed it to Lopez and Chinen so she could hear the announcing of the placings.

“That was almost as good as being there,” Hannah said.

Lopez and Chinen, long-time friends and former level-nine club gymnasts, both spent two years away from the sport after enduring major injuries – in Lopez case it was a broken and dislocated right elbow, while Chinen had a stress fracture in her spine. This year was the first back for the juniors – and possibly the last.

When asked if she’d return for her senior season, Lopez speculated to other media outlets that she was unsure.

“If this was really it for her, it was a heck of a way to end it,” Jim Holt said. “I can’t imagine a better finish to a too-brief career.”

Notes

Newport’s Kristine Wong finished tied for seventh in the 4A bars with a score of 8.25…Chinen also finished ninth in the vault.