Circle of Stars - Indianapolis, IN
2-21-09:  Boys' pictures added 3-10-09.  The Fire Squad boys had another solid performance as the Level 4's brought home the 7th Place overall trophy, out of 30 teams.

Circle of Stars - Indianapolis, IN
2-21-09:  The stars encircled Indianapolis this past weekend as 3000+ gymnasts competed at Indie's downtown Convention Center.  Both the men's Fire Squad and the Lady Flames contributed to the festivities.  The Lady Flames Levels 4 & 5 were victorious in their respective sessions.  The dwindled Level 6 girls brought home a 2nd place session award behind a good Team Central squad from Missouri.  The 4's finished in 5th Place overall, out of 45 teams.  The 5's landed the 2nd Place overall award, also out of 45 teams.  The sickly 6's finished surprisingly in 3rd out of 32 full squads.  The 3 compulsory levels combined to win the Compulsory Super Team award - the highest scoring club!
     The Optionals highlights included Wendy Schweihofer's (L8) gold medal bars routine, Holly Manter's 2nd Place FX and Breanna Goggin's silver on Vault.  These performances helped their team to the 3rd Place session award.  The 8's finished a modest 16th out of 45 teams.  The Level 9's shone on vault and beam as Grace Wypasek captured gold & silver, respectively, and Delina Phillips landed the silver on vault.  The Level 10's showed improvement as Leadbetter landed a decent beam routine, and Stepp reached the podium (3rd place) with her Full-Twisting Tsukahara vault routine.

Hearts On Fire SQM - Port Huron, MI
2-14-09:  All American Flames played host to the February State Qualifying Meet over the Valentines Day weekend.  Just over 250 gymnasts participated in the Levels 5 & 6 competition. 
     The Lady Flames L6's started it off on Saturday night against 8 other teams from Michigan.  The Flames managed to catch two explosive teams they have trailed all season, while fending off the other 6.  Their quality performances helped them finish with a quality 1st Place trophy.
     The Level 5's took the stage on Sunday morning against 6 other Michigan teams.  The girls won Bars enroute to a 2nd Place Team finish behind a very good Splitz Gymnastics team.

I Am... Invite - Shelby Twp, MI
2-10-09:  The All American Flames Fire Squad had a good outing at Olympia Gymnastics.  Both level 4 and level 5 teams won the 2nd Place Team Award.
     Robert Blandino ended up 7th all around; Christopher Bowles took 3rd on Parallel Bars; Jack Wettlaufer was 3rd on vault; Aaron Honemann placed 1st on Pommel Horse; Keegan McAfee had another good outing pulling a 4th place All Around; and Carter Lane anchored the team down with a 1st place All Around. It was Carters third meet and his first ever 1st All Around. They did a fantastic job! Great Job Boys!!!
 

Chicago Style - Chicago, IL
2-6-09:  This past weekend the Lady Flames participated in a Guinness Book of World Records event.  IGI's 11th annual Chicago Style meet held at the Navy Pier had boasted of being the world's largest women's artistic gymnastics meet for the past few years.  Well, this year they made it official as representatives from Guinness were on-hand to confirm their boast.  Over 4400 gymnasts participated in the 3-day event.
     5 of the 4400 gymnasts participating comprised a miniscule squad from the Lady Flames Level 5 team.  These girls had earned their way into participating at the Pier.  They brought home a 1st Place Team banner from the Friday sessions.
     The Lady Flames also sent a 5 girl squad of Level 6's.  These girls narrowly missed a 1st Place banner, themselves, settling instead for 3rd.
     The Optionals (Levels 8-10) all represented.  The Eights showed improvement in all aspects while just missing banner placement.  They finished 6th out of the 26 teams in their day's competition.  The Nines gave it a go, but were slightly disappointed with their finishes.  Kudos to a new Hand-fronter, a 'finally-made' bars swinger, and a double-back revisited.  The Level 10's, yes, it is officially pluralized, Jessica Leadbetter competed all 4 events!  Hooray!  And she did well enough to finish 3rd in the All Around.  Amanda Stepp knocked down another consistent performance landing a gold medal on beam enroute to the silver medal All Around.
     It was a nice performance by some good kids doing their best to look good on the 'world's largest' stage.  Congrats to them and to the Chicago Style meet hosts on a remarkably well-run competition.