By Chrisopher Tremblay

Staff Sports Writer

While watching the Olympics in 2012, Holliston’s Emmeline Stoetzel found herself infatuated with American gymnasts Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman as they graced her tv set. 

The 6-year-old really enjoyed watching them perform their routines and the dedication that they put into their craft. It was at this point in time that she decided that she too wanted to be a gymnast and began taking part with a club team in Holliston. 

Originally, she was just going to stick with the club team, especially since the high school didn’t have a gymnastics team, but things would change. Before they got better, things got worse for the then-freshman. While working on a routine she felt something pop in her shoulder when she was in mid-air. 

“I dislocated my shoulder and had to have surgery so I couldn’t compete for 6 months,” the Holliston native said. “Then as soon as I got back onto the floor, I pretty much did the same thing to my other shoulder and was out for some more extended time.”

Although it was not extremely pleasing to sit on the sidelines and watch her teammates compete, one good thing about that year was that it was during the Pandemic and there wasn’t a lot of meets that were taking place.

In October 2021, in addition to a lot of physical therapy, Stoetzel started working on her skill sets and basic conditioning enroute to her getting back onto the floor with her teammates. She found things rather rough as the other girls were working with the coaches, while she had to make up her own condition skills during practices. 

“It was really hard, but I stuck with it. It motivated me, especially after having the second surgery I found that I had been away from the sport way too long,” she said. “I started by doing handstands and progressed from there and although I used to do all four events, I never went near the bars again as it was just too much for my shoulders.”

While Stoetzel was working on getting back to her old self, her high school was joining forces with the Medway co-op gymnastics team (Millis and Milford are also part of the co-op that performs under the Medway title). At the last minute, the sophomore decided that she wanted to try out for the team and although coming off back-to-back surgery’s she had a decent season.

“My skills were not as advanced as they had been, but I felt good getting back into it,” Stoetzel said. “I went to the individual states where I finished high on the floor and was named a Tri-Valley League All Star, which was a total surprise to me.”

Medway Coach Breanna Vacca noted that Stoetzel had a great comeback that season competing on the vault, beam, and floor.

 

“It was a learning experience because we really didn’t know what she could or could not do. The only thing we were sure of was that she was going to stay away from the bars,” Vacca said. “While she did well, the following year was crazy as she progressed a lot. She did, however, hurt her ankle near the end of the season and missed out on the League Championship and the Sectionals, but was back in time for the States.”

Over the past two years Stoetzel has been named to the TVL All-Star team both years and finished 9th on the floor exercise as a sophomore and improved to 7th as a junior.

As she enters her senior campaign with the Medway co-op team as a two-time captain, she and her coach both have the same goals – stay healthy. Vacca said that as long as she is able to stay healthy, she should be able to compete in the three events all season long. During the team’s first meet this season Stoetzel finished with a 9.45 on the vault and a 9.3 on the floor.

“I am looking forward to staying healthy this year so that I can compete and do well in my three events. I’m still staying away from the bars all together, it’s just not worth getting hurt again,” the senior said. “I want to stay consistent in all three events with my routines, especially the beam. If I can do that, I’m hoping to get back to the States again.”

While participating on the floor is a lot of fun for the senior, she has been practicing a lot on the vault this year, so she is hoping to improve upon that event as well.