State a competition among friends
TACOMA – Midway through Loreah Winlow’s floor exercise it became clear that gymnasts are a unique bunch.
The loud cheering coming from the side of the floor for Winlow, Lakeside High’s lone competitor, wasn’t from her teammates. It was Winlow’s competition that eagerly acknowledged her smooth 9.775 floor exercise performance in Friday afternoon’s 3A/2A individual rotations at the WIAA/Dairy Farmers of Washington State Gymnastics Championships at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall.
“Gymnastics is really special in that sense,” said Robyn McClain, an assistant coach at Mt. Spokane. “Most of them have been competing with or against each other since they were really young.”
The Wildcats advanced the lone local – regional champion Meghan Ballou – to the final day of competition, which begins today at 12:20 p.m. Ballou received the top score of 9.40 to advance on the balance beam.
“Meghan has always been a great gymnast, it’s simple to coach such a talented athlete,” said Mt. Spokane coach Sabine Mai. “She’s very special and I had no doubt she would make it, she’s a tough kid and all around a tough athlete.”
McClain’s daughter Lindsy also competed, along with Winlow and North Central’s Katie Sweatt, who just missed out on qualifying with an 11th-best score of 9.150 on the vault, Heidi Sweatt and Christy Grorud.
In the 4A competition, University was the only school from the Greater Spokane League to qualify for the team competition, which included Kaleigh Campbell, Stacie Davis, Tatiana Garcia, Stephanie House, Alicia Knowles, Denel Lang and Taylor Vold. Though none advanced, U-Hi coach Tracy Duncan was pleased with their season.
“It was big and we’ve got three freshmen here and that’s going to be invaluable in the future,” said Duncan. “They just had exposure at a state level that most kids their age don’t get. Next year we’ll come back strong and they’ll do real well.
“As a team they pulled together and supported each other through a very rough meet, but as individuals they had a pretty rough go of it. They still need to be proud of the fact that they came here as the only team from the GSL and their nearest competition in the GSL was seven points behind them.”
The GSL had sent 10 athletes – none of whom advanced to today’s finals – to the individual rotations, including Shadle Park’s Kali Young, who had qualified for all four individual events – beam, vault, uneven bars and floor.
Central Valley’s Emma Vidmar (bars) and Courtney Sexton (beam, floor and vault) represented the Bears; Shadle’s Suzanne Towner (vault and bars) and Melissa Edmunds (vault, bars) also competed, along with Mead’s Laura Budig (bars), Hilary Nicol (beam and floor), Cortnie Schramm (beam), Katie Green (beam, floor and vault) and Taylor Gray (floor).