A high school senior from Meredith scored a perfect 10 in a gymnastics competition Saturday, Feb. 28, in Watertown.
Lilly Stalter, 18, a home-school student who competes for the Oneonta Family YMCA, got the elite score on the floor exercise. A Level 8 gymnast, Stalter qualified for the YMCA National Gymnastics Championship, which will take place in Greensboro, North Carolina in June.
“Right away, I felt like it wasn’t real,” Stalter said Wednesday, March 4. “I felt like I was dreaming. It was like a whirlwind. I got a little emotional, because this is my senior year, so it was crazy it was able to happen before I am done.
“It was a lot of excitement, a lot of happiness and a little bit of sadness thrown in,” she said.
Stalter has been training at the YMCA for 12 years and has been a team captain for four years. Floor is her favorite part of the competition, she said.
“I love floor, because I am also a dancer,” Stalter said. “So, I can kind of combine my two favorite things on the floor.”
Tara Robinson, the Oneonta YMCA gymnastics coach, said the entire gym gave Stalter a standing ovation, including the judges.
“Floor was her third event that day,” Robinson said. “She has me stand in the corner of her hardest tumbling pass, which is a one-and-a-half twist, and she landed it perfect. Then she went on to do the rest of her routine and everything was stuck.”
Robinson said she knew something special was happening when the judge stood up to give the score. When the judge pulled out the 10, the reaction was amazing, she said.
“It was a lot of tears and a lot of cheers,” Robinson said.
Stalter’s 10 was the first perfect score ever recorded in the floor exercise by an Oneonta Y gymnast, and only the third ever in the New York YMCA system, Robinson said.
Robinson, who runs Impressions Hair Salon in Delhi by day and coaches the competitive gymnastics team in Oneonta at night, said Stalter is like another one of her children. She and Stalter’s mom, Wendy, went to Delaware Academy together.
“I have literally known Lillian all her life,” she said.
Stalter, who also trains at Oneonta’s Elite Dance Academy, said she wants to pursue a professional dance career. She plans to attend CLI Conservatory in Southampton, Mass, in the fall to study dance.
“I love my team here,” she said. “I love my coaches here. It is just a lot of fun having practice here.
“It is going to be hard to leave gymnastics behind,” she said.