Acrobatics & gymnastics Triple-winner Melissa McGuffin of Crofton led the MultiSport acrobatics team at the Spring Invitational recently at Gymnastics Plus in Columbia.
McGuffin's score of 9.30 on her second tumbling pass helped her clinch the gold in the Novice I tumbling competition for girls ages 13-18. She teamed up with Lizzy Krauss to win the Novice Women's Pairs event and finished the meet with a first place in the Novice Women's Trio event with Kristen Cilento and Julia Dykstra.
Double winners for MultiSport were Dykstra, Melissa Snow, Meredith Carpenter, Tom Hamblin and Melissa Scalley.
MultiSport tumblers combined for 16 first-place awards in the meet that had 57 tumblers and 56 acrobatic teams from Maryland, Virginia and Washington.
Barlow's Gymnastics of Annapolis recently played host to the 1994 Maryland United States Gymnastics Federation Level 10 Girls Gymnastics Championships. The best gymnasts from the state competed from 10 teams to claim individual awards as well as team trophies.
Competing from Barlow's were Kirsty, 17, Fulton of Mitchellville, Karen Newhard, 16, of Gambrills and Lori Bernia, 13, of Annapolis.
Fulton placed first on beam (9.00), third on floor (8.90), fourth on -- bars (8.80), fifth on vault (8.95) and was second in the all-around (35.65). Bernia placed third on beam with a 9.03.
The three gymnasts will compete at the USGF Level 10 Regional Championships presented by Gym-Beez of Downingtown, Pa.
Cathy Schnell of Annapolis and Stephanie Thielen competed at Baltimore County Gymnastics in their last meet before the state Level 6 and 7 championships at the end of this month.
Schnell placed first on beam (9.65) and floor (9.5), second on bars (9.3) and third all-around with 36.60. Thielen placed fourth .. on beam (9.2), sixth on vault (9.1) and seventh all-around with 34.95.
Senior volleyball Norwood Car Center won its fourth consecutive Pasadena Senior Volleyball League championship by taking six straight in the playoffs and finishing with an overall record of 53-13.
Norwood defeated Mayflower Movers in the final by scores of 15-3, 15-6, 15-3.
Norwood Car Center, which is comprised of Doug Ripple, George Kelch, Fenn Stallsmith, Paul Zimmerman, Ron Ellecamp, Lou Peterson, Bill Prunkl and Tim Nulty, will compete in the Maryland Senior Olympics this fall with the hope of advancing to the Senior National Olympics.
Swimming
Sixty-seven swimmers from defending champion Severna Park rTC YMCA will compete in the four-day YMCA Masters National Championships that begins today in Indianapolis. The swimmers range in age from 20 to 81.
Severna Park won the championship the past two years, both in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The team's chief challenger this year is host Jordan YMCA, which has 90 swimmers.
A dozen members of the Naval Academy Junior Swim Club competed on the Maryland State Zone Team at the Zone Championships conducted Easter weekend at Princeton University.
Patrick Donlin of Hillsmere set a zone record in the 200-yard backstroke (1 minute, 53.62 seconds) during the preliminaries, earning the first Junior National cut of his career. He placed first in the evening finals with a time of 1:54.62. He also finished third in the 100 backstroke in 53.65.
Finishing in the top three were Erin McCauley, who took third in the 200 breast in 2:26.55, and Chelsea Hastings, who finished third in the 100 IM in 1:09.63.
Also competing in the finals for Navy were Travis Brandon (100 breast, 59.73, fourth), Rich Slingluff (200 butterfly, 1:56.82, fifth; 100 fly, 53.33, sixth), Alex Golod (200 free, 2:14.05, fifth), April Pish (200 fly, 2:13.88, seventh) and Hastings (200 IM, 2:30.55, eighth).
Other Navy Junior members of the Maryland State Team were Billy Schultz, Elizabeth Lavell and Chris Hussey.
Five members of the Naval Academy Junior Swim Club qualified to compete at the United States Swimming Junior Nationals last month at the University of Michigan.
After four days of competition, Navy led the Maryland teams with 121 points and finished second behind Swim Atlanta with 182. Maryland's Curl Burke Swim Club was third with 116, followed by the North Baltimore Aquatic Club in 31st with 31 points and the UMBC Retrievers in 45th place with 13 points.
Seventeen-year-old Amy Betz of Annapolis recorded her best times in all five of her events. She earned a new Senior National cut time in her sixth-place finish in the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.52, which was also a U.S. Swimming "Top 16" time and Navy team record. Betz also swam the 200 butterly where she finished seventh in 2:03.75, was 14th in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.66 and 13th in the 200 IM in 2:07.50 -- all Junior National cut times.
Joan Chidester, 17, of Edgewater also swam best times in all five of her events, setting four Navy team records and recording four U.S. Swimming "Top 16" times in the 100 freestyle (51.70), 400 IM (4:28.48), 500 freestyle (4:56.05) and 200 IM (2:06.66). She also trialed the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.01.
