By George Edgar
Special to The Sports Paper
Sarah Zimmerman is seemingly running around. One activity to the next, one friend to the other and so forth. She’s a bundle of energy that is apparently non-stop.
Zimmerman’s been pretty non-stop as an athlete as well. She ran cross country in the fall and will run long distance events in track in the spring for the North Kitsap Vikings. This winter, she’s also added bouncing, tumbling, and cart-wheeling to all that running for the Vikings gymnastics team.
“What I like about her is her attitude,” said North Kitsap gymnastics coach Kris Goodfellow. “She is the epitome of a can-do attitude. If it’s fun, she’ll do it. I’ can tell her we’ll be pushing cars in the parking lot and she’ll say, ‘Let’s go! ’”
If you told Zimmerman at the beginning of the season the team needed a place to practice, she probably would’ve said “Let’s find one!”
One of just three gymnastics teams in KitsapCounty, the Vikings almost didn’t have a place to practice when their venue, Zero Gravity, where Kingston’s team also practiced, closed down just one week before practices were to begin. Fortunately, the teams are using the commons area at NorthKitsapHigh School to practice, and they also get some time in at Olympic Gymnastics Center in Silverdale.
“It was disappointing, especially for my senior year,” Zimmerman said. “We’re glad to have a place to do stuff, and Olympic Gymnastics is giving us a place to do our routines.”
Zimmerman made it to state in the floor exercise and the vault, one of five Vikings gymnasts to advance. As a team, North was unable to make it due to a fifth place district finish.
“We had problems at district on the beam,” Zimmerman recalled. “We had high expectations that we couldn’t come through with. We had a lot of people make it individually.”
This past fall, Zimmerman ran with the cross country team that finished ninth in the Class 2A championships in Pasco. She ran the meet in a time of 21 minutes, 51 seconds
During the spring time, she runs the 1600, 3200, and 4×400 relay for the Vikings track team. She prefers the long distance events as opposed to the sprints. Sprints would help a gymnast with the vault, to build up speed before the jump. But for the other events like the floor exercise and the uneven bars, endurance is better suited.
“It gives me endurance,” Zimmerman said of her running. “It brings out the speed, so I can crank out a floor routine. It doesn’t do much for my flexibility.”
“She has great endurance,” Goodfellow said. “I never have to worry about her on the floor.”
“The endurance helps when you’re on the floor,” Zimmerman said. “You have the cardio and the respiratory turnover. It’s good for an all-around exercise.’
Last year’s trip to the state meet was memorable, albeit for a different reason. Zimmerman was about to take the floor for her floor exercise routine when the power went out in the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall, and everything went dark.
“She was on the floor, and she was excited to do the floor exercise,” Goodfellow recalled. “Then there was the power outage when she ready to go. She had to wait a few minutes. She still did a good job on the floor, but she didn’t get to what she wanted to do at state.”
“The lights just went out,” she recalled. “Everything stopped for 15 minutes, and I wasn’t able to get ready.”
Zimmerman has a 3.8 GPA and is looking to attend either OregonState or BostonUniversity. She hopes to actually walk on to a cross-country team instead of gymnastics. “Before high school, I would have said gymnastics” she said. “But with the amount of how good you need to be, with cross country, I’m more able to continue.”
But a fourth and final appearance to the state gymnastics meet looms o Feb. 21-22 in Tacoma, especially if Zimmerman makes it in the all-around.
“It would be a great way to end my senior year,” she said. “We have to work hard on getting our skill passes down, and get in extra difficulty. I hope to make it; it would be a fun way to end the year.”