After freshman Shelby Hochberg flips through the air and lands, she loses her footing and almost falls. As she walks away, she seems disappointed with her performance, which was plagued by a few uncharacteristic falls. Almost immediately, several teammates approach and reassure her. This team unity has propelled the Felines, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity gymnastics team, in their quest to improve upon last season’s performance.

Last year, the Felines placed fifth at the Team Championships with a score of 104.9. They finished behind Tottenville High School, Benjamin Cardozo High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and the Bronx High School of Science at this citywide competition. This year, expectations are much higher for the team, which has five promising new members and 12 returning players. “A lot of the team has improved from last year and the new girls we got this year are at a higher level than the new girls we got last year,” coach and physical education teacher Vasken Choubaralian said.

One of these rookies is Hochberg. Described by Choubaralian as hard working, dedicated, and open minded, she has become an integral part of the team. Hochberg said that she began doing gymnastics when she was about four, kept at it, and eventually won a few championships. She has competed in all four meets so far, which is rare for rookies, and has been a large factor in the team’s success. Her scores in vaulting have been consistently high. Against Dewitt Clinton on Friday, January 16, she scored a 7.7, higher than any her opponents’ scores.

Each meet consists of four events: vaulting, uneven parallel bars, balance beam and floor exercise. Five girls from each school compete in each event, although individual gymnasts may participate in more than one event. The top four scores of each event are added to give the total for the team in that event, and the sum of the four events is the total score for the team. In all events, the highest possible score one gymnast can get is a 10.

In their opening meet of the season on Tuesday, January 6, Stuyvesant closed the gap between two of the four schools which they finished behind last year—Bronx Science, which finished fourth last year, and LaGuardia, which finished third. The Felines defeated LaGuardia by nearly six points, but lost to Bronx Science by one point. “We made certain mistakes because we were nervous,” junior Rayna Foster said. “We learned what we needed to work on.”

The team made some mistakes in all events, but Choubaralian was most disappointed with the team’s lack of preparation for floor exercises, in which they scored only 23.2 points out of a possible 50.

Beating LaGuardia and coming within a point of Bronx Science, nonetheless, gave the Felines some hope. “We saw the win in our team, but we saw that we had potential to do more,” senior and co-captain Ksenia Timachova said.

Stuyvesant got an opportunity to capitalize on that potential on Thursday, January 16 against Dewitt Clinton High School. The Felines got off to a slow start when Greenberg was disqualified in vaulting for wearing jewelry. But the Felines made up for this with high scores of 25.9 and 26.35 in balance beam and floor exercise, respectively. Dewitt Clinton could not match Stuyvesant in either of these events. Choubaralian was particularly pleased with the floor exercise—in the first meet, the Felines scored only 23.2 points. In her first time ever competing in the floor exercise, junior Molly Balsam received enthusiastic applause after a nearly flawless routine. She was the overall highest scorer with a 7.1.

Stuyvesant went on to participate in the Invitationals, a citywide competition between all 15 teams in the city, on Sunday, January 18. This meet was significant because it “gives us an idea of what Team Championships feels like,” Timachova said. The Felines scored 104.6 points for third place. They finished behind Bronx Science and Tottenville High School, but well above LaGuardia and Benjamin Cardozo High School, both of which finished ahead of them last year.

While the results were decent, the meet was marred by errors. The Felines underachieved in both bars and beam, scoring a 22.3 and a 25.4, respectively. “Four of the five girls on beam fell at least twice,” Choubaralian said. Nevertheless, members of the team believe that if they can eliminate the mistakes, they will be capable of beating Bronx Science and Tottenville.

Despite their success in the Invitationals, the team knows that it must be able to improve their performance before the championship. “Our goal is not to do well in the Invitationals, but to do well in the Finals,” Choubaralian said.