With a roster featuring just two seniors and less than half of the total being upperclassmen, the women’s gymnastics team is still not short of leadership.

Leaders can show their importance in a few different ways, both leading by example and being a vocal leader come into play in the sport of gymnastics.

“I think leadership is of huge importance in gymnastics although it is a very individual sport,” said senior Marisa Liptak. “I know my teammates rely on me a lot and I rely on them in practices. I like to lead by example and try and get my stuff in the gym… I feel I also take on more of a motivational type of leaders. If I see my teammates down, I try to cheer them up or remind them of how great they are.”

Liptak believes she encompasses both aspects of leadership, but the difference lies in the situation. Head coach Sam Morreale prefers and believes in the importance of leading by example as a valuable aspect for his younger gymnasts to learn from during practices and conditioning.

While leadership may come with seniority of being experienced, Morreale has also had team captains in place, which was not done before he became the head coach.

“Truthfully, whoever I name captains assume a leadership role, and that’s one of the things they take upon themselves,” Morreale said. “It’s actually, a lot of time leadership weeds itself in or out. Even some of the sophomores I look to be leaders based on their ability. There’s different ways to lead, you can lead by example, which is what I like, or based on the oldest. We’re lucky this year where both of the older kids show good leadership skills.”

Junior Kim Gotlund believes that while the team leadership is still under the control of the gymnasts themselves, that Morreale helped make the team stronger through his passion and his coaching approach.

“He’s really passionate about what he does, he loves gymnastics and you know he loves coaching so I think that helps in his motivation,” Gotlund said. “I feel like he helped unite us more as a team. We always had good leaders before him, I think him designating captains helped.”

While the aspects of hard work and motivation are integral to any team success and cohesion, senior Natalie Sutter brings up another important part of her view on leadership.

“We do a lot of cheering for each other and being good role models,” Sutter said. “I just feel like as a leader it’s good to show them the path to take, show them you can have a bad routine but you still need to hold your head up because it’s a team sport now not just individual. Showing them the experiences you’ve been through and showing them the right direction.”