Just this week the Harrisonburg Blue Streaks finished their final home meet in the 2014 – 2015 season. With performances by all gymnasts, Harrisonburg did come short of a victory over the Knights of Turner Ashby. Though the team didn’t win together, individually the girls met their personal goals with their own victory.

Sophomore Amanda Herrera-Castro ended her first season of gymnastics on a high note.

“I like gymnastics because its fun, but also hard,” Herrera said. The event she competed in that night was beam. Herrera’s routine consisted of a variety of dance elements, like cat walks and reversing your direction with style.

New to the whole gymnastics program, Herrera has not only learned a lot, but also built a strong relationship with her teammates and coach.

“Coach King is very hysterical, but he’s nice to us,” Herrera said.

Getting a major applaud from the audience, Herrera performed a full split while sitting on the beam and showed the judges her balance and flexibility with a simple raise of the arms and salute. Though Herrera did not compete on floor as she is yet to create a floor routine.

“[I wanted to do gymnastics] because of the tumbling. I want to learn as much as I can,” Herrera said.

Looking forward into the future she hopes to have her back handspring on floor and to incorporate that into a floor routine. By the end of the meet each gymnasts left with a smile on their faces and so did Herrera.

“[My best memory this season was] all the new friends that I got,” Herrera said.

Now fast forwarding to Saturday, the Blue Streaks ended their season at Patriot High School. Finishing 6 out 8, the gymnasts spend the entire day working very hard and celebrating a great season. Michael King, Harrisonburg’s gymnastics coach, was pleased in how the team performed. Waking up at 4 AM to leave the high school at 5 AM, everyone knew it would be a long day, but all their effort would pay off during the season.“[Today’s performance was] pretty good, we had some kids that were first timers at this kind of meet and it was quite evident that they were nervous, but we had some that were not first timers and their performance was a lot stronger,” King said. Much of the gymnastics team consists of freshman and sophomores. With only two seniors, Coach King sees much potential in the following seasons to come.

“Meagan Roberts stood out real well and Krishna Goradia, she had a no fall on beam so she did a real good job,” King said. The only two seniors, Goradia and Roberts, were major team cheerleaders to help raise the moral of the team and push them to their limits.

Preparation for these kind of away meets is difficult. Unlike other sports, gymnastics doesn’t have a strong participation here in the Valley. Those who do include Harrisonburg, Turner Ashby and Orange County. In order for the team to find other competition, Harrisonburg must look out of the valley and into other conferences for a more demanding challenge.

“Preparing for a meet like this today is a lot about making sure they know their routine and they are mentally relaxed and strong about what they are doing,” King said. He knows that his gymnasts are physically capable of performing their routines. It is just that fear factor that the girls learn to overcome.

For next season Coach King is suggesting that there would be more work outside of the season to improve for next year. Especially since Harrisonburg will be losing two strong gymnasts for all four years of their high school career.

So after everyone’s last flip, salute and vault, the team trudged home with their heads high and eyes into the future. Reflecting on the team’s performance this year, each gymnast will be dismounting their old abilities to master new techniques and talent.