Giant Gymnastics opens the season

SPARTA — Giant Gymnastics of Sparta opened their meet season in a big way this year, with a brand-new team of Junior Olympic Level 4’s: Millie Dobbs, Kate Sutphen, Kacy Biddiscombe, and Karen Maasbach all from Sparta, and Lily Kucks of Franklin make up the new team.
Although they have competed with Giant before, they now make up this year’s Junior Olympic (JO) Level 4 team. Millie Dobbs competes in the 9-year-old category, while the rest of the girls compete 11 and up. Age groups are determined by the age they will be when they compete in states in February, which is earlier than other teams for Giant.
The first meet was the Acorn Cup hosted at Bishop Ahr High School in Edison. This was also the first meet for Giant’s new coach, Arron Siminski, who joined Giant last May. Coach Arron helms the JO program, along with Margaret Witt, the level 4 coach.
Karen Maasbach was second for floor exercises and third for balance beam.
The team’s second meet was the Princess Invitational, hosted by EnVision Gymnastics. All competitors were given crowns and wands, and anyone who stuck their beam routine got a special Beam Queen Medal, which Giant’s Lily Kucks earned.
Maasbach was third for the vault and Kucks was second for vault, third for bars and all around.
Their next competition is Dec. 1-3 and it's the first time all the gym’s teams, JO Level 4, JO Level 5, and Xcel, will compete.