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THE RISE OF MV GYMNASTICS How the once deserted team is being restored
BY JAYANTI JHA AND RUCHA SOMAN
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t the start of the 2019-20 school year, after the MVHS cheer team fell apart, athletic director Nick Bonacorsi overheard a girl who was previously on cheer hoping for the creation of a gymnastics team at MVHS. After looking into the logistics of starting one, Bonacorsi realized MVHS once had a gymnastics team — it just needed to be revived to its competitive state. “At the [athletic director’s] meeting [in the fall], the Cupertino athletic director [said], ‘If you have any gymnasts, we’ll take them and they can compete under your school’s name, but we’ll run them through [our] practice,’” Bonacorsi said. “So that’s not uncommon — for instance, our dive coach coaches Lynbrook HS divers because they don’t have a dive coach or dive pool. So we’ll try and share coaches when it makes sense [for] individualized sports like that.” Bonacorsi began to form the team in November of 2019. While four students at MVHS were initially interested in the gymnastics team, the current team only consists of sophomores Kelly Hui and Marlys Kutach. “I had heard from my friends at my gym that they started their own teams at their schools,” Hui PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION OF MARLYS KUTACH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION | JAYANTI JHA
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EL ESTOQUE | MARCH 2020