Top of the World: Striver Gymnasts Win Silver Team Title at National Championships

Door County, WI - The Door County YMCA Striver Silver Team Captured the Silver Team Title at the 2024 YMCA Gymnastic Championships held in Philadelphia this past weekend. Five of the nine Door County Strivers made the journey to “Philly” to vie for the title.  

A total of 12 Silver Teams in the 3C division competed from all over the United States. To be considered for a team score, the squad needs three or more gymnasts. The top three scores on each event are tallied for the team total. Hundreds of Silver gymnasts also competed as individual qualifiers to vie for medals on each event. The top 3 teams are awarded Banners while the top 30% of gymnasts are awarded individual medals on Floor, Vault, Beam, Bars and All Around.

The Striver Silver Team won a Silver (Second place) banner and earned a total of 24 individual medals.  The group was divided into a Junior and Senior Division.

All-Around: Champion, Lauren Gaida (Sr), Sawyer Soukup Silver winner (Sr), Ellie Kelsey (Jr) 5th,  Keira Clark (Sr) 8th, Evelynn Kelsey (Sr) 12th.

Vault: Champion, Lauren Gaida (Sr), Sawyer Soukup (Sr) 3rd, Evelynn Kelsey 5th (Sr.), Ellie Kelsey (Jr) 5th, Keira Clark 10th

Bars: Champion, Lauren Gaida (Sr), Evelynn Kelsey (Sr) 3rd,  Sawyer Soukup (Sr) 5th, Ellie Kelsey (Jr) 7th, Keira Clark(Sr) 10th.

Floor: Lauren Gaida (Sr) 3rd, Sawyer Soukup (Sr)4th, Ellie Kelsey (Jr) 5th, Evelynn Kelsey (Sr) 10th, Keira Clark (Sr) 13th.

Balance Beam:   Lauren Gaida (Sr) 3rd, Sawyer Soukup (Sr) 6th, Ellie Kelsey (Jr) 6th, Keira Clark (Sr) 8th.

The Striver’s Silver Team went undefeated for the past two seasons and won back-to-back State Championships in Wisconsin YMCA Tournaments. Winning Silver at Nationals is a wonderful way to end the 2023-2024 season.

The Level 7 Striver Gymnasts earned eight individual medals. Estelle Duerst (JrB) won silver medals on the vault and in the All Around. Portia Hah (SrB) medaled 3rd on bars, 5th on vault and 6th on beam. Amira Anschutz won a 7th place medal on floor.

Seven Team members earned a “queen of the beam “medal for executing a beam routine with no falls, they are Shaylynn Asher Platinum, Ellie Kelsey, Keira Clark, Sawyer Soukup, Lauren Gaida, Estelle Duerst and Portia Hah.

The Door County YMCA: For Youth Development, Healthy Living and Social Responsibility. Driven by its founding mission, the Door County YMCA has 170 full and part-time staff serving over 11,080 members in Door County from facilities in Fish Creek and Sturgeon Bay in a broad range of programming for all ages. The Y empowers everyone, no matter who they are or where they’re from, by ensuring access to resources, relationships, and opportunities for all to learn, grow and thrive. By bringing together people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and generations, the Y’s goal is to improve overall health and well-being, ignite youth empowerment and demonstrate the importance of connections in and across 10,000 communities nationwide.