After forming just four years ago, the gymnastics team is onto its third coaching set as Sarah Jimenez and Paul Belliveau take over for the upcoming season.

Jimenez will partner with Belliveau, who will return to Whitman after coaching the team from 2011-2012, after last year’s coach Teal Hinga left to complete graduate school.

Jimenez used to work at Silver Stars Gymnastics in Silver Spring but left coaching to finish her master’s degree. She then heard about the opening at Whitman from some of her former gymnasts and decided to come back and try coaching at the high school level.

“Coaching high school gymnastics will certainly be a new challenge and I’m excited to see what the girls can do,” Jimenez said.

Belliveau became the team’s first coach in 2011 when former student Samantha Buxbaum wanted to form a gymnastics team and needed a coach. He then coached for two seasons until he left for personal reasons following the 2012 season. After hearing about Jimenez’s desire to share coaching duties this season, however, Belliveau decided to come back to the team as an assistant.

Belliveau has a long history with high school gymnastics and also helped form the Blair gymnastics team where he coached from 2002-2005.

Juniors Emma Robinson and Lila Hobby both worked with Jimenez while she was at Silver Stars and are excited about the opportunity to work with her again.

“I’m looking forward to hopefully having another strong season,” Robinson said. “I think her leadership and knowledge of gymnastics will help us have an even better season than we have had in the past.”

Although the team is new, they have found success, finishing third in counties each of the past two seasons and captain Sarah Dar, who worked with Belliveau when he was at Whitman, attributes the team’s success to his early leadership.

“He’s and amazing coach and has a lot of experience so when he came to Whitman he was really able to step up, help us start a team, and devote a lot of his time to us,” Dar said.

While gymnastics is an individual sport, Belliveau said he likes the team aspect and strategy that goes along with it.

“With gymnastics I like the challenge of building a team even though the performances are individual,” Belliveau said. “There is so much logistically and psychologically that goes into what makes up for a good performance at meets and the support of the team is a big part of that.”

Jimenez, who has coached for 10 years, says she enjoys seeing her gymnasts accomplish the things they put a lot of work into and watching them succeed.

“I really enjoy seeing gymnasts experience the fruits of their labors and to feel as though they’ve accomplished something,” she said.