Mead sixth, U-Hi eighth
TACOMA – While preparing for the State 4A gymnastics meet, the University Titans spent all day Friday without power in their hotel.
It’s just another reminder how unforgiving Tacoma can be this time of year.
A young team and a relatively untested team came to the Tacoma Dome’s Exhibition Hall and learned first-hand about competing in a talent-loaded environment, where Mead finished sixth and U-Hi eighth in the team portion of the meet.
Mead, which improved by less than a tenth of a point from regionals to 170.7, had a difficult night on the uneven bars, which offset some improved performances on other apparatuses.
“Our bars weren’t where we wanted them to be, but we made up for it on the floor,” Mead head coach Amanda Workman said. “It’s nice to come to state and do as well as you did in the regional meet, because there is a little bit more intensity in this meet.”
The Panthers finished fourth in the vault and fifth in the balance beam behind the performances of juniors Ashley Dotson and Tonya Turner, who put up top-20 scores in the vault and made top 11 in the beam.
On the bars, though, Mead was last, with only one girl posting an 8.0 after four did in the regional meet.
The state meet should serve as more of a springboard, though, as the Panthers don’t have a senior on their roster.
“I told the girls, ‘This was our rebuilding year,’ and we didn’t even know we’d be here as a team,” Workman said. “So we did really well.”
Meanwhile, U-Hi, which had only one girl with experience in more than one state event, got off to a slow start before finishing well with a fifth-place score in the floor exercise and a total score of 166.275.
“We had some falls on the beam, actually a lot for us,” Titans co-coach Karen Renner said. “We just kind of had to take a deep breath and say, ‘O.K., that didn’t work,’ and we had fun and did well on the floor.”
Monica Marmolejo, Tatiana Garcia, Kayla McGahey and Brittany Mueller all scored at least 9.0 on the floor exercise for U-Hi.
Bothell won the 4A tournament with a score of 178.85, the school’s first state title.
Carrie Dragland of Bothell won the all-around title with a score of 38.25, and three GSL gymnasts finished in the top 20.
McGahey scored a 36.325 for 12th place, Mead’s Turner finished 15th with a 36.125 and Mt. Spokane’s Sara Hanson placed 18th at 35.7.
Two GSL gymnasts qualified for the individual event championships today, as McGahey finished in a tie for sixth in the bars with a 9.3 and Dotson tied for seventh in the beam, scoring 9.2.
North Central’s Katie Sweatt finished 18th all-around at the 3A/2A tournament, just missing the individual finals in the bars and floor exercise. She needed top-10 finishes to advance and ended up 11th and 12th.
Also, Central Valley head coach Kim Brunelle was honored as the 4A coach of the year during the awards ceremony following the 4A meet and Ferris was named 4A academic champions.