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Rising Magruder senior Lexi Carroll does not blame her friends for not fully understanding the 34 hours she spends on gymnastics in an average week. But she does have one request for anyone who dares undermine its credibility as a sport.

"You're holding your own body weight, and you're holding it and flipping and twisting," Carroll said. "You really have to have strength to do that. My friends always want me to do stuff, they know it's hard. ... But specifically boys, I always have that fight with them about whether gymnastics is a sport or not. But I'm just like, ‘Why don't you try it?'"

Many parents sign their kids up for beginning gymnastics classes. Only a few survive to reach the highest levels of the sport.

Carroll is one. She has watched many of her peers' passion for gymnastics fall by the wayside, but her fire is still burning.

The vault specialist is already verbally committed to compete at NCAA Division I Penn State University, which finished third in this year's regional meet and advanced two individuals to the national championships in the all-around.

Carroll's latest conquest was the vault competition at Level 10 Junior Olympic Nationals, May 7-8 in Texas. Level 10 is just under elite Olympic level. Carroll competed at the elite level a few years ago, and took the silver medal in vault at the U.S. Challenger in 2007.

But elite athletes are required to attend camps once a week in addition to training. The time commitment became too much for her, though her passion for the sport remained. So she moved back to Level 10.

"There are definitely a lot of people who quit, a lot who don't make it," Carroll said. "I've missed some stuff, but in the end it's worth it. When I won vault at nationals that was really exciting, because it's just an honor to say you're No. 1 in vault out of the whole country."

Carroll qualified for nationals by winning the state tournament in April and placing second in Region 7, which also includes Virginia, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Carroll picked up her fifth all-around state title by winning all four events: bars, balance beam, floor and vault.

Carroll possesses impressive strength in her defined 5-foot-3 frame. She has been lucky to avoid serious injury thus far, but has suffered stress fractures from overuse.

She admits she is often tired and sore, but said it is a feeling of accomplishment that keeps her going when she wants to stop.

When she gets to Penn State, there will be a new motivating influence: teamwork. Carroll is the latest in an impressive line of Magruder students who trained at Hill's Gymnastics in Gaithersburg, a line that includes Olympian Courtney Kupets and current Auburn (Ala.) University team members Kareen Kaveh and Allyson Sandusky.

Yet Magruder does not have a high school team. Carroll will sign her National Letter of Intent this fall and said she looks forward to the opportunity to represent her school.

"There are always new things you can learn; I'm still learning new skills, and I like that," Carroll said. "I like to compete, and gymnastics has taught me so much about being dedicated and how to be disciplined. Competing for a team is going to be different. It's probably going to be more nerve-wracking, but I think that's going to make me better."