Gymnastics spotlight: Gianna Marafioti and Emma Murphy have Lynbrook rolling after program debuted in 2023-2024
When Lynbrook gymnastics named the team’s first-ever captains this winter, there were few more obvious picks than the athletes responsible for the program’s existence.
Meet junior Gianna Marafioti and sophomore Emma Murphy, who helped Lynbrook gymnastics debut its team in the 2023-24 season. The duo met over a shared desire to compete for Lynbrook in gymnastics and began meeting with athletic director Joe Martilloti in 2022.
“He was willing to work with us,” Marafioti said. “I would go into his office every day asking, ‘Is the gymnastics team ready yet?’ I truly did harass him every single day.”
Marafioti and Murphy provided the names of at least 20 students who were interested in joining a varsity gymnastics program, proving the interest was there. The team rosters 14 gymnasts, both in 2023-24 and 2024-25.
Like the program itself the team is young, with Marafioti being one of two upperclassmen. Coach Dana Docar described her as someone who “leads by example.”
“I love all the younger girls we have on the team,” Marafioti said. “They’re like younger sisters to me.”
Murphy was only an eighth grader when she helped Marafioti pitch the program. It’s quite the leap from the girl who grew up doing cartwheels around the house, leading her grandfather to put her in gymnastic classes.
“I like to be able to help other girls and to encourage them to keep going,” Murphy said.
The Owls would win their first meet before placing fourth in Nassau II, with five of the team’s 10 gymnasts earning eligibility for the state qualifying meet.
“It feels pretty cool, because we put this together,” Murphy said. “We did this.”
Combined with the fall 2022 opening of All-American Gymnastics in Lynbrook, a Long Island-based club gymnastics organization with locations in Bellmore and Oceanside, Marafioti and Murphy know that handstands and backflips are just beginning for the Owls.
“I’m excited to see what’s to come,” Marafioti said. “I know it’s only up from here.”
Twists, turns and takedowns
Being a multisport athlete is more common than ever, but two gymnasts are taking it a step further by being just that within the same season.
Bethpage’s Autumn O’Britis and Addison Moerler compete for both Bethpage gymnastics and girls wrestling, the only two gymnasts in Nassau to do both. O’Britis joined the girls wrestling team with some familiarity in the sport as her siblings had wrestled in the past.
“It’s exciting to know that, instead of just guys’ wrestling teams, there are girls’ wrestling teams,” O’Britis said.
While the sophomore had never wrestled prior to this winter O’Britis noted how her gymnastics history helps her on the mat.
“It’s definitely the flexibility for gymnastics that I bring into wrestling that makes it easier,” O’Britis said. “It helps me get out of harder moves, and it helps me get into moves that need a lot of flexibility in your arms or legs.”
Moerler’s twin brother, Luke, is on the boys’ team and helped her get into the sport. Like O’Britis, Moerler also hadn’t wrestled before this winter.
“In the beginning, it definitely brought down my nerves a lot,” Moerler said. “I wasn’t walking into a room with nobody I know.”
Both O’Britis and Moerler agreed that, despite a busy schedule, there’s a simple message to hear for those considering branching out to girls wrestling.
“If you’re thinking about it,” O’Britis said. “Just do it.”
Cartwheels at Cold Spring Harbor
Cartwheel for a Cure, an annual fundraiser for the Madison Milio Tribute Fund, returns to Cold Spring Harbor at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. It’ll be the first time the Seahawks have hosted the event since its debut in 2022.
The event is held in honor of Milio, a 9-year-old Massapequa girl who died in 2021 after a nearly three-year battle with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, a type of brain cancer.
Donations should be directed to https://p2p.thecurestarts.now.org/1071