Wilton's Olivia Mannino competes on the uneven bars during the Ro Carlucci FCIAC Championships for gymnastics at Westhill High School on Feb. 15, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut.
Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut MediaLooking for its first conference championship in seven years, the Wilton gymnastics team entered last Saturday’s FCIAC meet as the top seed.
But following a strong regular season, the Warriors were unable to to end their recent drought.
Wilton scored 131.50 points to finish third behind Fairfield Ludlowe (134.55) and St. Joseph (133.95) at the FCIAC meet, which took place at Westhill High School in Stamford.
“We just didn’t do the job on [balance] beam,” Wilton coach Gary Chadwick said. “We scored 31.2 [points] and that was two points less than our previous low of 33.3, which came in the second meet of the season.
“When we won our last FCIAC title, back in 2013, it was our beam score that gave us the win over Ludlowe,” Chadwick said. “The shoe was on the other foot this year.”
Freshman Olivia Mannino was second in the vault (9.3) and fourth in the all-around (34.15) for the Warriors.
“She picked a good time to have her best vault of the year,” Chadwick said about Mannino.
Senior Kate Ginsburg was second on beam (8.6), and junior Lilly Byrnes finished second on floor (9.2), right behind St. Joseph’s Schuyler Tomey (9.25).
“Lilly would have won on floor but she had a slight deduction coming out of her final move,” Chadwick said. “Kate was great on beam, but other than that we didn’t get much.”
Also contributing to Wilton’s team score were Byrnes (8.35), Carter Siegel (8.3) and Justine Biersack (8.3) on vault; Mannino (8.2), Siegel (7.65), Meg McNamara (7.35), and Kaylie Berghaus (7.15) on uneven bars; Mannino (7.8), Byrnes (7.8) and Siegel (7.0) on beam; and Sarah Collias (8.95), Mannino (8.85) and Ginsburg (8.4) on floor.
The Warriors will now turn their focus to winning a third straight state championship at the Class M meet, which takes place Feb. 29 (time TBA) at Jonathan Law High School in Milford.
“States are a bigger meet for us,” Chadwick said. “It would have been nice to win FCIACs, but our goal is always to end the season with a state championship.”
Notes: Ludlowe’s Ava Mancini won the all-around title at the FCIAC meet with 35.25 points. She was first on beam, third on bars, fourth on vault, and seventh in the floor exercise.
The team championship for the first for Ludlowe, which entered the meet as the fourth seed.