The bell rings,  and she knows it’s time to go. It’s only 2:15 p.m. but she has to get to practice. She gets all of her stuff ready and checks out. She rushes to her car to make her 2:30 p.m. practice at 135th street. She gets to her car and sees that freshman Francine Vaughn is already there. Senior Sara Stubbendieck hops in the car and they race to practice.

Stubbendieck drives Vaughn to their four to five hour practice everyday. They both practice at Eagles Gymnastics, and are very high level athletes. Stubbendieck is a level 10 out of 10 and Vaughn is not far behind as a level nine. However, this success didn’t happen over night according to Vaughn and Stubbendieck. She is 17 years old and has been doing gymnastics for almost 15 years.

Some girls may think that getting to leave early everyday would be awesome, but according to Stubbendieck, there are also downsides.

“I think there are just a lot of things at school that I don’t get to do,” Stubbendieck said. “Especially because I leave early, and some things I can’t do on the weekends because I have practice or meets.”

Vaughn has been leaving school early since fifth grade at Visitation. This year, she had to get her schedule altered to make sure she attends all classes before leaving for the day.

“I just have frees at the end of the day,” Vaughn said. “So I just don’t have many frees during the day.”

However she tries to focus on getting her homework done in her few frees, and she likes to talk to her friends more during activities.

Vaughn has done competitive gymnastics for seven years, and she did recreational gymnastics for a number of years before reaching the competitive level.

Both girls now have a love of the sport, but Vaughn didn’t start with the same passion she has now. Her mom did gymnastics as a kid and thought her daughter might like it too.

“When I was really little, like three, I would just go and I would just cry,” Vaughn said. “So my mom took me out out of it.”

However, a few years later she tried it again in Kindergarten with a few of her friends. This time she stuck with it. Once she moved up to the competitive level, a lot of her friends had dropped it but according to Vaughn, she had fallen in love with it.

Stubbendieck had a different experience experience from Vaughn. When  Stubbendieck’s mom noticed her daughter trying to do rolls around the house, she put her in a gymnastics class.

“She wanted to put me somewhere where I could have fun and be safe trying to do all that stuff,” Stubbendieck said.

Both girls stuck with it and now they get to travel all around the country to do competitions. Competition season is from January to April. According to Stubbendieck, meets are the best part, and Vaughn agrees.

“Meets are the best,” Vaughn said. “ All your hard work pays off, and you get to travel to Colorado, Texas, Minnesota and many more places with your friends. It’s hard but fun.”

When they are competing, Stubbendieck’s favorite event is bars. The bars event is when girls perform spinning moves and acrobatic swings on a pair of parallel bars set at different heights from the ground. Along with bars, there is the balance beam, vault and floor event.

According to Vaughn, her favorite depends on what she is best at at that time.

“Floor, like tumbling and stuff, is probably my favorite at the moment,” Vaughn said.

According to Stubbendieck, gymnastics is a huge time commitment. For some girls like sophomore Devin John that time commitment becomes too much. John was tired of having to choose between gymnastics and other sports.

“I stopped because it it was really hard to do a club sport and also a school sport, and I wanted to do school sports,” John said. “So I quit at the beginning of freshman year.”

John had been doing gymnastics for eight years at Beller Gymnastics, and she had reached level seven when she quit. In grade school she did volleyball while doing gymnastics. She had to skip some volleyball practices in order to make it to all of her gymnastics practices, and some days she would have to go from one practice straight to another. Since quitting gymnastics she has been able to participate in many school sports.

SAILING

Sophomore Sal Scott sails at Perry Yacht club. She grew up in  Belize and learned to sail at a very young age. Her dad took people sailing, and she would help out.

“I guess it was the equivalent of if your dad was a professional soccer player you probably know how to play soccer,” Scott said.

Scott started sailing competitively at a sailing club in Belize in 2012. Scott’s sailing club went to the junior championship regatta in Kansas a few months ago. Scott likes to have fun, but she is also very competitive and takes sailing seriously.

“In Belize there were better kids [than me],” Scott said. “But then here I won the last [competition] we did.” Scott said.

HORSEBACK RIDING

Sophomore Helayna James takes horseback riding lessons at Woodson Hill Equestrian Center. She met her best friend, Vanessa Gonzalez, at camp and Gonzalez told her that she should try horseback riding.

“So I went back and I did and absolutely fell in love,” James said.

James used to have a horse named Tiger Lily when she did showjumping. She has recently made the switch to dressage, which she described as horse dancing. She now practices with practice horses because Tiger Lily is not trained in dressage. James started taking lessons when she was 12, but she has always loved horses.

“I love the calm at the barn,” James said. “Like when you are just there with your horse, and the bond you two create over the time of working together. It’s a great thing.”

Helayna also does track for STA.

KARATE

Freshman Talia Parra has been doing karate since third grade. She practices two times a week for 1 ½ to 3 hours. She only does about three competitions a year. These last almost all day, and take place all over the country.

“We went to Pittsburgh for one,” Parra said. “Then there is also a really intense one in Chicago that I haven’t been to.”

At first Parra went to watch and didn’t want to do it, but her parents made her and she ended up loving it. She has become very good, and is an advanced martial artist.

“I am second degree brown belt,” Parra said. “So I have one more brown belt and then black belt,” Parra said.

In addition to karate, Parra does swimming in the summer and for STA, and she also did cross country this fall.

IRISH DANCE

Junior Molly Burns has done Irish dance at O’Riada Manning for 11 years, and is a level seven out of seven. In addition to taking classes, she also teaches them. When Burns turned five, her mom put her in an Irish dance class. At first she hated the class, but when her mom told her she was allowed to quit she didn’t because she was already too invested.

St. Patrick’s Day season is very busy, and so is Irish Fest at Crown Center. The time around Thanksgiving is also busy because they are preparing for one of the biggest competitions of the year. According to Burns, it is very stressful, but worth it. She loves being on stage, but hates what she has to put her body through.

“[My least favorite part is] the wear and tear we do on our bodies,” Burns said. “We just pound the heck out of them.”