Double trouble secures gold at girls tennis Columbus Invite

A win like this is not only huge for the organization in general, but for the team’s motivation for the game.

Jamison Hanway Staff Reporter

Becoming champion is something rare for someone to achieve and is not taken for granted. This rare achievement has been accomplished for freshman Keira Verespej as she has won the regional championship for gymnastics.

Verespej competed in the floor routine, bar, beam and floor. She ended up winning all four of those events.

Keira has been putting the hard work in, since she was two years old. Verespej has trained at the Omaha Gymnastics Academy.

“I train 16 hours a week,” Verespej said. “I do all four events everyday. We do floors, bar beam, floor, and an hour of conditioning, and 45 minutes of each event.”

Verespej had competed in local meets and qualified for state, and that led to the regional competition. There were girls from all over the midwest, from North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas.

She had arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the meet. When getting to the meet, she saw the other girls from the midwest. This was Keira’s first year attending regionals and she started to worry and become nervous.

“When I went to regionals, it was really never racking because I had never been to regionals. This was my first year going and the girls are obviously better because they qualified for regionals, they had higher scores, so it was really near racking for me.” Verespej said.

She was able to overcome her fear by the help of her teammates, Coaches and her family.

“Hanging out with my teammates just calmed me down, and my coaches helped keep me calm and my heartbeat steady” Verespej said. Her family cheered her on while she competed at regionals. Verespej’s family has been in her corner since she started gymnastics.

“They told me to do my best, and that I’ve worked hard so try my best. Verespej said.

Verespej’s journey is not over as she hopes to attend nationals next year and grow as a gymnast.

“Next year, keep doing gymnastics,” Verespej said. “I’m going to keep doing gymnastics and hopefully compete in college.”

They told me to do my best, and I’ve worked hard to try my best

For the first time in 13 years, a girls varsity tennis player brought home a first place medal in a tournament. Those players were Ally Seevers and Miranda Kelly.

Girls varsity tennis brought home four medals, which was a major success for this year’s Columbus Invite.

Finishing with #1 doubles first, #2 doubles second, #1 singles fourth, and #2 singles fifth, these results were significant for the team.

“We had four medalists,” varsity coach Jason Rodenberger said.

“ In my 13 years here, we’ve never had a girl’s player finish first place in a tournament. So to have a doubles team as a first place medalist and second place medalist was huge.”

“It made me feel super excited and gave me some confidence for other invites,” senior Miranda Kelley said. Kelly was a part of the #1 doubles team who secured first place.

“It [the first place win] just made me get into tennis mode, instead of my other sports. It made me just think about tennis for once,” Kelly said.

With huge success in the doubles portion of the invite also came some singles success.

“I played #1 singles, which was an accomplishment for me because I was on JV last year,” junior Shayleigh Leeper-Martinez said. “It was a big step up for me.”

While it is important to win, there is also a huge mental aspect to the game of tennis that is important to maintain whilst playing.

“Sometimes I’m very impatient and I just want to hit a winner every single time and it’s not always about that. You just have to play out the point,” LeeperMartinez said.

The success in this invite will hopefully carry on for the rest of the season as the team prepares to play in multiple invites coming up at the end of the year.

“My hopes are that all 10 members of our varsity team continue to work hard, push each other, so that those who are playing at our last few invites, Metro tournament, and State are playing at their peak level,” Rodenberger said.