Bayla Goldberg leads Smithtown to Suffolk team gymnastics title
Smithtown’s Bayla Goldberg celebrates after sticking the landing following her dismount from the uneven bars during the Suffolk gymnastics team championships at Hauppuge on Monday. Credit: Kathy M Helgeson
Smithtown senior gymnast Bayla Goldberg could barely speak after the Suffolk team championships Monday night.
Not because she was overcome with emotion, although her smile could barely be wider. Goldberg was dealing with an illness that popped up and left her uncomfortable throughout the day.
Yet it didn’t prevent her from winning literally every event — from vault to bars to beam to floor — as Smithtown gymnastics defended its county title at Hauppauge High School, its fourth in five years.
“I just woke up one day and my voice was gone, and I started to feel progressively worse,” Goldberg said. “But I pulled it together today.”
She posted first-place scores of 9.4 in vault, 9.725 in bars, 9.7 in beam and 9.575 in floor for an all-around score of 38.4. The Bulls, with a score of 181.175, edged out Bay Shore/Islip (170.925) and West Islip (167.925), coming just 0.4 points from tying the county record.
Goldberg’s uneven bars routine was spectacular, beginning without a trampoline as she transferred between lower and higher bars twice before dismounting, flipping twice in the air and sticking the landing.
“I just take it one routine, one skill at a time,” Goldberg said. “I just focus on the present and what I’m doing in the moment and not think as much ahead, because then you get sidetracked and you can’t focus on what’s happening.”
Smithtown senior Amanda Burns and junior Brooke Dunn took second (36.3) and third (35.7), respectively, in the all-around. Burns tied for second with Bay Shore/Islip’s Luna Badillo in beam (9.3) and finished inside the top five in all events aside from floor, where she took seventh.
It was during that floor exercise that you could almost feel the joy emanating from the senior as her teammates joined in by matching Burns’ dance moves.
“It helps with the pressure and stress of the routine,” Burns said. “You see your teammates dancing with you, and it helps calm all my nerves. It makes me smile and laugh to see them joining in with me.”
Dunn placed third in vault (8.95) and fourth on beam (9.1), ending the latter with a backflip. She woke up Monday morning preparing to “remember every little detail I’ve been practicing.”
Tuesday morning, however, she’ll awake as a county champion knowing she did her part to make that possible.
“We all know what we’re capable of, going into it,” Dunn said. “We just have to get to where we know we can be.”
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
