Columbus East’s Cami Warren vaults during a gymnastics meet against Columbus North at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Monday, Feb. 21, 2022.
The Republic file photo
The Columbus East gymnastics team has been hit hard by injuries the past two years, so a healthy season would be a welcome relief for the Olympians.
“We want to give the seniors their best year because we’ve either had injuries or COVID, troublesome years kind of thing,” East co-coach Melissa Dishinger said. “So we’re excited to give our seniors a really good last year, and I think the rest of them, we’re just excited to build on what we have. A lot of them are new, so especially for the juniors and sophomores, this is a building year.”
The Olympians lost three of their top four gymnasts from a team that finished eighth in the East Sectional last season. But they do return their top gymnast in senior Cami Warren, who finished 15th in the all-around competition at the sectional.
“She’s doing really well this year,” Dishinger said. “We’re really excited to see what she can do by the end of the year.”
Two other gymnasts who figured to play prominent roles last year were injured. Junior Shelby Kendrick and senior Leighanna Shelton are back and healthy to compete this season.
“There’s a lot of girls that haven’t competed yet, so it’s kind of a new thing for them,” co-coach Katie Menefee said. “I’m excited to see what they do. Then the girls that were out and injured last year, we’re excited to get them back in the game. Then our seniors, we really want to see what they do.”
Sophomore Amelia Fay is the only other returner from last season. Beyond that, the Olympians have four other girls who are new to high school gymnastics.
“We have a lot of new people,” Dishinger said. “We have some younger girls, and we have some girls that were on the team last year that finally get to compete this year.”
Dishinger and Menefee are happy with the way the offseason and the first month of practice have gone for the team.
“It went really well,” Menefee said. “We had really good attendance, and we got a lot of skills accomplished. We did a lot of conditioning. For some of our more advanced girls, we do custom skills that typically wouldn’t happen until later in the season that have come out now at the beginning of the season.”
East opens its season against a first-year Westfield program on Saturday. The Olympians then travel to crosstown rival Columbus North on Monday.
“We’re looking good,” Dishinger said. “Everybody is getting a lot stronger. So we’re pretty excited to debut some new skills in the first meet.”
