McCarthy leads Oceanside to Nassau gymnastics title
Oceanside's Paige McCarthy on the uneven bars at the Nassau County Gymnastic Team Championships. (February 9, 2010) Credit: Photo by Richard Slattery
Nine days ago, Oceanside lost the regular-season crown and its unblemished record to Plainview by eight-tenths of a point - what amounts to an unpointed toe and a wobbly dismount. It was the climax of a seasonlong competition that had both groups pushing the limits of their abilities.
Last night at the Nassau County gymnastics championships at Oceanside, it was undefeated Plainview's turn to blink and Paige McCarthy's turn to excel - broken toe and all.
Oceanside defeated second-place Plainview, 170.675-165.925, and six other teams behind stellar performances by McCarthy and fellow senior Diana Tolaj. The night was capped by their back-to-back 9.15 scores on floor to seal Oceanside's second Nassau championship in three years.
"It was amazing," McCarthy said of the team effort. "We all fought so hard."
Perhaps none more so than McCarthy. She suffered injury as well as insult, breaking her left toe in the Plainview match Feb. 1, but she regrouped this week, coach Andy Morris said.
She was needed. The Sailors have been practicing a tsuk vault - a high difficulty skill that entails a roundoff entry and a back tuck off the table - and McCarthy was the one who stepped up to train them in what they called a difference-maker.
"She coached them all," Morris said of McCarthy. "They all got it this week . . . and what she did on a broken toe was pretty amazing."
The training paid dividends, as Oceanside scored a 42.4 on vault, with five of the six gymnasts doing the tsuk. It was the team's second-highest team score of the night - led by Cheyenne Blumburg with a 9.0; its best event, floor, earned 44.4.
It would take everything Oceanside had to hold off Plainview, led by Victoria Vitale. She scored a team-high 9.225 on floor, outdone only by Bethpage's Erin Roach (9.3) and Hicksville's Allison Osmundsen (9.27). Massapequa was third with 159.8. Sewanhaka (159.4) and Bethpage (159) rounded out the top five.
McCarthy and Tolaj, inundated by young fans from their club gym, said the win was especially sweet after the "frustrating" loss against Plainview. McCarthy said it served as motivation to work through the pain. "[The foot] is still bothering me," she said. "But I just tried to put [the pain] out of my mind and just focus on the team and go."
As she led her team toward victory, McCarthy would grimace and clench her jaw. Figuratively, though, she would not flinch.
