Coaches prep gymnasts for season

Chess masters break the game down into segments – the opening, middle and endgame – and adjust their strategy accordingly.

Gymnastics is much the same way.

In November and December, Kim Brunelle at Central Valley and Tracy Duncan and Karen Renner at University work their gymnasts through opening moves. The middle game kicks in right after Christmas, with the end game slated for the end of January and February, when berths in the state Class 4A championship meet are on the line.

“I told one of my freshmen this week that we don’t need them to be at their best this week,” University co-head coach Tracy Duncan said. “We need them to peak in February. That’s when it really counts – when it comes time to qualify for state.”

A year ago the number of state berths available to Class 4A schools was slashed. Only one team from each of the state’s four regions advanced to compete for a state championship. The Eastern Regional sent just one all-around gymnast and another three individuals per event.

This year the region still sends one team, making the Eastern Regional meet a winner-take-all event. However, two gymnasts all-around and four individuals per event get tickets to Tacoma and the state meet.

Central Valley Bears

Going into this week’s opening meet, Brunelle was less concerned with stringing together moves as she was with teaching her young, inexperienced gymnasts how to set up the chess board.

“This may be the least-experienced team I’ve ever had,” Brunelle said. “The skills I’m teaching right now are the skills that they would have learned in junior high if there was still a junior high program.

“Since we start league this week, we’re kind of having to teach them backward. Instead of teaching them skills, we’re teaching them routines. That’s pretty hard to do.”

Brunelle, last year’s GSL Coach of the Year (the second time she’s earned that honor the past three seasons), and her assistant coaches Lee Irving. Angie Giroux and Cory Treadwell, always have the Bears in the middle of the hunt when the end game comes and state berths are divvied up.

Two-time All-GSL competitor Courtney Sexton, a senior, attends Gonzaga Prep, which does not offer gymnastics, and competes for the Bears. A year ago she was All-GSL on the vault and a second-team pick on the bars. She was a first-team All-GSL pick on the floor after her sophomore season.

This year, with Maria Alderman and Jenny Dimmler lost to graduation, Sexton is by far the team’s most experienced gymnast. Brunelle will look to her to set the standard for the rest of the team.

“She’s really excited about the season,” Brunelle said. “She’s going to have to be a leader for this team and she’s accepted that challenge.”

Sexton’s freshman sister, Mackenzie, joins the squad. Junior Brittney Szoke and sophomore Emma Vidmar both have varsity experience.

University Titans

A year ago freshman Courtney Gilbert made a huge splash, earning All-GSL first-team honors on both the floor exercise and the vault. This year she’s out for the season.

“I am so heartbroken,” Duncan said. “Courtney injured her knee over the summer and had surgery in September. She’s still with us – helping me with paperwork and things like that. But she’s done for the year.”

Fortunately for the Titans, the cupboard isn’t bare.

Seniors Tatiana Garcia and Taylor Vold are the team’s captains and co-head coaches Duncan and Renner will lean on them.

“They’ve actually been helping us with the freshmen,” Duncan said. “They’ve been with us now since Karen and I started and they know what we look for in a routine and how we build routines. We can send them off to evaluate a routine and trust them to know what’s needed and what needs to be cut.”

Both Garcia and Vold came up big in the district and regional meet for the Titans a year ago, with Vold earning All-GSL first-team honors on the vault and was a second-team pick on the bars.

Fellow senior Alicia Knowles is a varsity veteran as is junior Denel Lang.

Freshmen Stacie Davis and Kaleigh Campbell both will have an impact on this year’s varsity.

“Kaleigh is a veteran club gymnast and we’re really excited to have her,” Duncan said. “She’s learning to make the transition from club to high school gymnastics and I think she’s going to do very well.”

Duncan said handicapping the GSL is simple.

“I really think it’s going to be us and Mead and CV all over again,” she said. “Shadle Park could be in there and I think North Central is going to be pretty tough as a Class 3A team.

“But when it all comes down to it at the end of the year, it will be the three of us fighting it out all over again.”