To Coach, no Surprise: Rockford's Korf Rises
March 14, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
ROCKFORD – Allison Tran saw glimpses in January that her soft-spoken junior was on the verge of competing with the elite high school gymnasts in Michigan.
Minutes after winning this season’s Division 1 championship Saturday, Rockford/Sparta’s Morgan Korf was almost convinced her coach was right.
What Tran saw early came to fruition at the MHSAA Individual Finals as Korf – a day after helping the Rams to their first team title since 1989 – posted an all-around score of 37.825 to improve from 18th last season and finish not only first, but ahead of four top-10 placers from a year ago.
“There’s just so many good gymnasts in this state. I don’t believe it’s me,” Korf said. “Watching the last event, a couple people fell. But I still didn’t believe it.
“I’m just too much in my head. (At the start of the season) I’m just like, ‘Nah, it’s not going to be me. There are so many people who are way better. I just went out there and did the gymnastics I’ve done all year.”
Korf didn’t finish first on any one apparatus, but never placed lower than sixth. She took third on uneven parallel bars (9.500) and tied for third on balance beam (9.375), tied for fifth on floor exercise (9.550) and sixth on vault (9.400).
Admittedly, Korf didn’t have the greatest 2014 meet; she had finished 11th in Division 1 as a freshman in 2013.
But she also took steps this winter to join the contenders – eliminating errors that previously led to slight deductions and adding more difficult skills that allowed her to score a few tenths of a point more.
Korf also took an anchor role during team competitions as the go-to scorer, especially during meets when junior Madi Myers – who finished ninth Saturday and had the team’s top score Friday – wasn’t available because of injuries. Performing in those pressure situations no doubt paid off for Korf on Saturday.
“The thing with Morgan, her nerves always got in her way last year and the year before. She’s grown a lot,” Tran said.
“She just never thought she was going to be there. We saw it for her.”
Only 75 hundredths of a point back was Grosse Pointe United sophomore Isabelle Nguyen, who improved from fifth all-around last season and finished second on bars (9.700) en route to a 37.750 score.
She knew she was in the championship mix, and consistency played a big part – Nguyen and Korf were the only Division 1 competitors to score at least 9.300 on every apparatus.
Nguyen improved more than half a point after scoring 37.125 at the 2014 Finals. And this season's finish should provide nice momentum for another run in 2015.
“I’ll get there. … Practice more, work harder,” Nguyen said. “Last year I was just a freshman, so everything was new to me.”
Korf and Nguyen were followed in the all-around by Grand Ledge junior Rachel Hogan (37.450) – last season’s runner-up – Grosse Pointe United senior and Isabelle’s sister Maria Nguyen (37.225) and then Canton senior Allison Kunz and Rockford sophomore Nicole Coughlin in a tie for fifth at 37.200.
Hogan finished first on vault at 9.800 and floor at 9.700, while Kunz won bars at 9.750 and Jackson Lumen Christi senior Mary Grace Fries won beam at 9.500 and finished seventh all-around at 37.050. Wilson’s vault score tied for second-highest in the event in MHSAA Finals history.
While the race in Division 1 featured a number of contenders, Grand Rapids Forest Hills junior Cassidy Terhorst was the favorite all season for Division 2 after winning that competition last season by 15 hundredths of a point.
Her margin of victory was a little larger Saturday, as Terhorst edged Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills/Grandville/West Catholic senior Kelley Momber by six tenths of a point, scoring 36.650 all-around.
Terhorst won Division 2 vault (9.375) and bars (9.200), was ninth on beam (8.800) and tied for third on floor (9.275). Momber had beaten Terhorst at the Regional, and she improved from 12th at least year’s Finals and won the beam (9.225).
“I definitely felt a lot more pressure because last year I was kinda under the radar,” said Terhorst, who will compete in Division 1 as a senior. “There’s a lot more competition this year. There’s a lot of really good gymnasts who were out with injuries last year, and they came back really strong. So I knew I had to work really hard to keep up with them.”
Forest Hills junior Ellie Siebert won floor with a score of 9.400.
Click for full Division 1 results and Division 2 results.
PHOTOS: (Top) Rockford/Sparta junior Morgan Korf finishes her competition on the beam Saturday en route to winning the Division 1 title. (Middle) Forest Hills junior Cassidy Terhorst was part of the final rotation on beam and went on to win the Division 2 title for the second straight season. (Click to see more at HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Troy's Shabet Finishes as Repeat Champ
March 8, 2014
By Keith Dunlap
Special to Second Half
PLYMOUTH – Troy senior gymnast Christina Shabet paused a bit to think of an answer, which was understandable since the question required a lengthy and detailed response.
As a talented gymnast who bypassed competing for a club team in order to be on the high school team her first three years at Troy, and decided to still compete on the high school level this year despite joining a club team as well, Shabet finally smiled and answered the question of what high school gymnastics had provided her.
"It did a lot," Shabet said. "Having to practice every night made me focus a lot on my homework. You really don't have much of a social life as a gymnast, to be honest. It helped me focus better on my schoolwork. And playing on a team for your school, you are friends with people on your team. It was really nice to see them at school and be able to talk to them and everything."
Competing in high school gymnastics did another thing for Shabet: It provided her with two MHSAA Division 1 individual all-around championships.
After winning the all-around last year, Shabet made it a repeat Saturday at Plymouth High School, accumulating a final total of 38.675 to barely edge Grand Ledge sophomore Rachel Hogan, who was a tenth of a point behind at 38.575.
Presley Allison of Grand Ledge was third with a final score of 37.875, Jocelyn Moraw of Canton finished fourth at 37.825 and Isabelle Nguyen of Grosse Pointe United finished fifth with a score of 37.125.
Shabet won the floor exercise with a score of 9.700, shared the bars title with Hogan after both received identical scores of 9.750, and finished second in her specialty event, the balance beam, with a score of 9.7.
Maddie Toal of Canton won the beam with a score of 9.725.
Shabet's worst event is the vault, but she still managed to finish fourth with a score of 9.525.
Hogan won the vault with a score of 9.725, but just didn't quite have enough in the end to score more than Shabet in the all-around.
"It feels really nice to come back and win again and defend my title," Shabet said. "Plus it is my senior year, and I get to finish off with a win. It was more pressure, but I practiced more and I felt pretty confident about everything, so I wasn't as nervous as I was last year."
Shabet was also better despite winning the all-around last year because she and coach Cynthia Tan made it a point to add new elements to her routine.
"We knew she was going to have a lot of girls coming after her this year," Tan said. "She already had a lot of high tricks in all of her routines. It was just a matter of adding more polish to her routine."
In her floor exercise routine, Shabet incorporated a punch front out of a one-and-a-half backflip, something she just started practicing this year.
"I was really happy I stuck that," Shabet said.
In the bars, Shabet said she has been trying to perfect a straddle back and performed it well on Saturday, which was a big reason she ended up winning that event.
With her high school career over, Shabet said she isn't sure if she will try and do gymnastics in college.
She is an honor roll student who has been accepted to the University of Michigan and is waiting to hear word on whether she will get accepted into Yale.
Shabet said if she gets accepted into Yale she will consider walking on to the gymnastics team there, but reiterated first and foremost will be schoolwork.
It goes without saying that Shabet will be nearly impossible to replace, so much so that Tan said after the meet that she will be stepping down as Troy coach.
The main reason is Tan wants to spend more time with her husband and two sons, who are 13 and 10 years old, but the end of Shabet's high school career provided an opportunity to finish with a flourish.
"We are walking out together," Tan said. "We are going out on top. ... I wanted to go out on a good note, and Christina is my good note."
In Division 2, Grand Rapids Forest Hills sophomore Cassidy Terhorst won the all-around competition with a final score of 36.400. Canton senior Erica Lucas took second with 36.250 points.
Terhorst, who tied for first in the vault and finished second in both the floor exercise and bars, didn't compete at all last year as a freshman because of a torn knee ligament.
But the nerves of competing in her first-ever MHSAA Finals weren't enough to prevent her from winning the all-around.
"It was scary having the big crowd here," Terhorst said. "I've never competed with this many people and this much pressure. But I liked the pressure."
PHOTO: (Top) The medalists from the MHSAA Division 1 Final wave to the crowd at the end of Saturday's individual competition at Plymouth High School. (Middle) The Division 2 medalists wave after receiving their awards. (Click to see more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)