Kristen Kresge came to Valley Central almost four years ago as a physical education and mental health teacher and she was talking to then-athletic director Bill Miller about coaching, and she asked why Valley Central didn’t have a gymnastics team.

Suzanne Schiaffo came in about a year later as a high school science teacher and during her interview with then Deputy Superintendent Michael Bellarosa, another former athletic director, his first question was, “tell me about gymnastics.”

Already nervous for a job interview, Schiaffo wondered where this was going when Bellarosa told her the district was building a program and asked if she’d be interested.

She’s been coaching gymnastics since she was a teenager and has worked at private clubs since 2013.

Fast forward about three years, the Vikings’ gymnastics program officially got its approval at the end of the 2020-21 school year and had its first meet on Jan. 6, a victory against the Wallkill Panthers.

“That was so exciting,” Schiaffo said, who co-coaches the team with Kresge. “We were so nervous, and we had no idea what we were walking into. We just knew they were the section champions and we had big shoes to full. We were nervous about that, but we were really proud of them to see how they turned out and what they were able to put together in our first meet.”

The Vikings first got together at Ziggy’s Gymnastics Academy in Middletown, where they practice and host home meets in November. Even as a new program, there was one question the two coaches kept asking themselves.

Will anyone show up?

Nineteen girls came to tryouts, and they had to cut the roster down to 11.

“We had a lot of interest, which was really exciting,” Schiaffo said.

Kresge is a Pine Bush High School graduate, and she and her father, retired Valley Central teacher and coach George Coates tried to get a program started there, but it didn’t happen, and she’s excited to see it happening at Valley Central.

Schiaffo was a high school gymnast at Roy C. Ketcham High School Wappingers and had the experience that Kresge wasn’t able to get.

“I love that about her because she can bring all that experience that I never got, as far as high school,” Kresge said. “I just had the club gymnastics and then the collegiate experiences, but she grew in all that high school expertise, which is awesome. I just wanted it so bad for these girls.”

The 11-member team is built with a lot of room to build as about half of it is made up of seventh and eighth graders. The rest is made up of one junior, two sophomores and two freshmen. No one is expected to graduate from the team.

Those two sophomores - Bailey Badendyck and Kaylee Benson – are team captains.

“They have great leadership qualities and they’ve really helped to bring the younger girls along,” Kresge said.
The Vikings host their home meets at Ziggy’s, the next of which is scheduled for Friday at 6:30. Depending on their competition schedule they practice at Ziggy’s three or four times per week.

Both coaches believe they have a talented team that could compete at sectionals, and they’d like to see a few girls make the state meet in Buffalo.

That would be a nice cap off for the first season, at the begging of which two coaches wondered if anyone was going to show up.

“We’ve been trying to keep it low pressure,” Schiaffo said. “We have these optimistic goals to go to states, but we keep telling them to take it easy, have fun and do what you can do. We want to keep these kids with us. There’s a lot of turnover and a lot of burnout and a lot of injury in this sport so we’re trying to make it fun for them, so they want to keep competing with us long-term.”