Maya Morgan is at home on gymnastics floor

Back flips on a balance beam don’t scare Maya Morgan. She’s at home with tumbling runs that would make a fighter pilot dizzy and treats a vaulting horse the way most people treat a jump rope.

Just don’t throw something at her.

“If someone throws a ball at me, I run the other way,” the Central Valley junior laughed. “That scares me – I’m afraid of catching and throwing”

Morgan qualified for the state gymnastics championships the past two seasons, and looks to reach the final round at state this year.

“Hopefully, I can make it to state in the all-around again this year,” she said. “My goal is to make the finals in at least one event. I almost did last year in the vault. It’s funny – the vault is my worst event.”

Morgan and the Bears are a team to be reckoned with this season – despite lacking any depth heading into the heart of the Greater Spokane League schedule.

“We don’t have a leader on this year’s team, so my top five kids are all feeling extra pressure,” CV coach Kim Brunelle said. “The thing is, if someone messes up on an event, they all have to regroup.”

On most teams, the strength is spread out to a number of gymnasts, meaning that relatively few athletes are expected to score well in every event. At Central Valley, the top five must score well in each event for the team to do well.

“In the Shadle Park meet, we didn’t regroup as well as we could have,” Brunelle said. “They all rely on each other, and that’s really hard. If one person has an off event, that could be a major break-up.”

That kind of pressure takes some getting used to.

“It’s kind of been a slow start, but I’m working on it,” Morgan said. “Right now, it’s mental for me.”

“Maya is having an interesting year,” Brunelle said. “Her skills are all there, but she has to work on the mental side. Out of no where, she’s having a little trouble with fear, I think.”

Morgan is the team’s most veteran gymnast, having started the sport very early.

“I used to live in Anchorage, Alaska, and I’ve been doing gymnastics since I was 2,” she said. “I did club gymnastics in Alaska, and I did club gymnastics here my freshman year of high school. I had to quit after that because it was just too much time.

“It was five nights a week, four and a half hours a day. That was just too much.”

The difference this year is the load each of the top five varsity gymnasts must shoulder.

“There’s heavy-duty competition out there, and I’m sure she’s feeling more pressure,” Brunelle said. “I’m pushing them way harder then they would like to be pushed, I’m sure. They’re used to being on teams where they mattered, but they didn’t all matter in every event in terms of them having to score. Now, pretty much, they matter on every event.”

Morgan has a naturally cautious approach to life in general, and her sport in particular.

“Maya is meticulous as a student,” Brunelle said. “She’s very careful about what she does. She likes to take her time to make sure she gets everything just right.

“She’s the same way as a gymnast. So much so that she drives me crazy sometimes. She over-thinks sometimes, instead of just getting up and doing it.”

Morgan is confident the team will make the necessary adjustments.

“We always pull through at the end,” she said. “Our goal is to finish second. Mead is going to finish first – we’ll give them that, but we can finish second.”

The Bears return to competition Wednesday with a head-to-head meet with University at Central Valley. Two days later they travel to Port Angeles for a two-day meet.

“It’s an intense trip,” Brunelle said. “We drive over there on Friday and compete that night. We’ll order in a few pizzas for dinner, sleep on the floor that night, get up and compete again starting at 8 a.m. the next day.”

The coach, who will take both her varsity and junior varsity for the meet, looks at the trip as a chance to build a strong bond for the season’s stretch run.

“They’re going to be together the whole time,” she said. “There’s no chance to do anything else but gymnastics on this trip. No shopping, no nothing. They’re going to be together for 48 hours straight.”

Morgan likes the sound of that.

“I love trips like this – they’re lots of fun,” she said.

Besides, they’re all about the part of the sport Morgan likes best.

“Competing is the fun part of gymnastics,” she said. “I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for competition. Sometimes in practice I’ll have problems just going for the individual skills, but in meets, I know I can do it.

“I like having all those people there, watching – I enjoy showing off. You know, not that many people can do gymnastics.”