Brewster Bayside Skippers Shine In Jump Rope Events At National Competition

Brewster’s finest jump ropers hopped their way to glory at a national competition in Iowa last month.

 The Brewster Bayside Skippers, a local jump rope team that’s been in operation for more than 30 years, took home multiple wins at the 2026 AAU Junior Olympic Games, held in Des Moines from July 28 to Aug. 8. Over the course of three days at the beginning of August, the team won 18 different events. 

Six kids ages 9 to 14 traveled to Des Moines to represent the Skippers at the competition, an annual multi-sport showcase for youth athletes held in different cities across the country. The 2026 edition (with more than 15,000 participants, according to a press release) was the Amateur Athletic Union’s 60th Junior Olympic Games. 

Joining the Cape jump ropers in the Midwest were parents and the team’s coaches, Sara Trauterman and Becca Stevens. Both former Brewster Bayside Skippers themselves, Trauterman jumped rope from elementary through high school and joined a performance team in college, and Stevens jumped rope for 12 years from elementary through high school.

“The kids did really well this go-round,” Trauterman said.

The Bayside Skippers’ season is long, running from October to August and culminating with the AAU Junior Olympic Games. They practice twice a week. At a typical practice, the team might first train for speed events (trying to jump as many times as possible within a set period).

“We have clickers out. We're counting each other, and it's really just about how fast can you go with good form,” Stevens said.

Then, the team will break off to work on their singles freestyles — individual routines choreographed to music — or they’ll split into pairs and double Dutch triples and help each other out with learning tricks.

Competitive jump roping is like gymnastics in that performances need to hit requirements for the judges — a certain level of tricks and difficulty. Presentation is also a factor, according to Stevens.

“They will run through their routines a pretty much infinite amount of times because muscle memory is very important to us,” she said.

With the AAU Junior Olympic Games serving as the final fulfillment of all that work, the most important thing was for the kids to have fun in Des Moines and to enjoy themselves. But coming out on top in several events, as the team did, was also a nice reward for all that effort. 

By event (which are split into various age categories), the winning tally for the Brewster Bayside Skippers was: Individual 1 Minute Speed, Individual 1 Minute Power, Female Individual (Zoe Haidas); Individual Single Rope Freestyle (Samantha Kautz); Pairs Power, Pairs Freestyle, Pairs Overall, Pairs Medley Relay (Haidas and Alexa Hayden); Double Dutch Single Speed, Double Dutch Single Power, Double Dutch Single Freestyle, Single Double Dutch Overall (Haidas, Hayden and Grant Haidas); Double Dutch Speed Relay, Double Dutch Pairs Freestyle, Pairs Double Dutch Overall; and 4x30 Speed Relay, 4x30 Power Relay (Luna Henchy, Kautz, Zoe Haidas, Hayden). 

The Brewster Bayside Skippers also won the Junior Group Routine. On the team currently are some of the most talented jump ropers they’ve ever had, according to Trauterman.

“We knew they were going to do well,” she said.

One jumper on the team, Addy Casto, was entirely brand new to jump rope competition, with the AAU Junior Olympic Games serving as essentially her first tournament (other than the qualifiers to get there), according to Stevens.

Casto was understandably nervous, yet she placed in an event. Among the several other events she participated in, Casto finished second in Mixed 30 Second Crosses.

“She crushed it,” Trauterman said.

Now on a summer break, the team will kick back up again in October with their twice-a-week practices. They’ll hold tryouts (which basically serve as skills assessments, since they don’t want to turn anyone away) at Eddy Elementary School on Oct. 27 and 29. Though all current team members are from Brewster, the group is open to anyone on the Cape.

In addition to the AAU Junior Olympic Games, the team is looking at other organizations they could potentially compete in. They have to fundraise in order to be able to get to the competitions. Next year’s AAU Junior Olympic Games will be in Houston.

The journey there begins with a single jump.