Rockford/Sparta Scores Banner Finish
March 13, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
ROCKFORD – Championship banners line side-by-side an entire wall of the sizable gymnasium at Rockford High School.
Overlooking center court is a banner for gymnastics championships – and a lonely number 89, signifying the year of the school’s only MHSAA Finals title in the sport.
“My freshman year. … Just looking up at all those, (I was) thinking how cool it would be to have a year I was here be on that banner,” Rockford junior Morgan Korf said.
“There’s always room for more.”
She’s absolutely right – and she and her teammates did their parts Friday to give 1989 some company.
Rockford/Sparta broke 37 points in three of four events and finished with a score of 147.975 to edge reigning champion Canton by 1.750 and claim its first MHSAA gymnastics title since winning the Lower Peninsula championship 26 years ago. (The peninsulas competed in separate Finals until 2004.)
The Rams had finished fourth in 2013, but missed the Finals as a team last season.
They returned as a Regional champion Friday and led reigning champion Canton by 2.450 points heading into the final rotation – with the Chiefs on their strongest apparatus, vault, and Rockford/Sparta on its weakest, uneven parallel bars.
Staying to pre-meet plan, the Rams threw skills they’d tried rarely this season – and scored the meet’s highest bars score, 36.300. Canton scored 37.000 on the vault, enough to cut the deficit but not completely.
“We just wanted to close it up, and we were all trying to stay confident so we could finish it off and do our best,” Rockford/Sparta junior Madi Myers said. “We were a little bit nervous, but we pulled it off.”
Myers did a routine she’d fallen on the other time she’d attempted it this winter. This time, she scored a 9.400, the third highest in the event Friday. Sophomore Nicole Coughlin completed a bail for the first time, and the addition of that skill helped her put up a 9.200.
“I’ve seen (Canton) vault multiple times, and I admire their vaults. It was really tight,” Rockford/Sparta coach Allison Tran said.
“My husband Michael Tran is our bars coach, and he’s been working all year on up skills with them. Bars is what really set us apart. Because if we had our average bars score and Canton did really well on vault, it would’ve been a dead heat right there.”
But this Rockford/Sparta team enjoyed a few advantages coming in.
The Rams finally were healthy. Myers – a Regional Division 1 champion two years ago as a freshman – didn’t compete in the MHSAA Finals the last two seasons because of injuries. Her all-around score of 37.825 Friday was the meet’s third highest.
Her abilities at the top added to depth that allowed Allison Tran the opportunity to do some maneuvering, especially with Coughlin’s sister Carly, often the team’s third-highest scorer, unable to compete all-around after being injured in the Regional.
Nine gymnasts contributed to the Rams’ score, with Korf scoring 37.800 all-around and Nicole Coughlin 36.575. Junior Ally Case and sophomore Katie Killinger scored 9.250 and 9.200, respectively, on beam, to highlight the many additional contributions.
“The thing that’s setting our team apart is that we really have depth all the way to number six this year,” Tran said. “So we had to not compete a person who could put up a 9.000. That’s really the difference. Our roster just goes on and on with people that can work into that group.”
Canton coach John Cunningham also had to dig into his talented roster as the Chiefs attempted to add to last season’s first-ever MHSAA Finals title.
They competed Friday without two of their best, including top 2014 all-around scorer Jocelyn Moraw, who was injured midseason and remains in a boot cast.
Still, Canton scored the second-best to Rockford/Sparta in all four events, and senior Allison Kunz posted the day’s second-highest all-around score, 38.075.
“We had a good meet, and we needed a great meet to win,” Cunningham said. “My last vault was 9.725, I looked over and said, ‘We can’t win.’ … Because (Rockford/Sparta) really did well.
“My senior Allison had a great meet, did really well on all four events. Across the board, I was proud of every single girl. … We were where we deserved to be.”
The finish was Canton’s fifth straight among the meet’s top two – the Chiefs previously finished runner-up to Grand Ledge from 2011-13.
The Comets were perhaps the biggest surprise of Friday’s Final. They advanced as the top fourth-place Regional finisher, and with only two gymnasts with significant experience prior to this winter.
One is junior Rachel Hogan, last season’s Division 1 individual runner-up. She scored a Team Final-best 38.225 all-around score, and two others broke 34 points as the Comets jumped to third in the final standings at 141.750.
“Way above my expectations,” Grand Ledge coach Duane Haring said. “This team is so young. We put a couple kids out there today; one has four months of experience. She did two events for us. Another one, a year. So the team is so young and so inexperienced; this just blows me away.”
Howell also broke 140 points, at 140.900, to finish fourth and improve from ninth in 2014.
PHOTOS: (Top) Rockford/Sparta’s Madi Myers performs her floor exercise routine Friday, scoring 9.500. (Middle) Canton’s Katie Dickson contributed a 9.125 bars routine, her team’s second best on the apparatus. (Below) Grand Ledge’s Tiana Seville prepares to vault; she scored a 9.300 in the event. (Photos by John Johnson.)
Escanaba Vaults Into Historic Opportunity
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
February 20, 2020
ESCANABA – The Escanaba gymnasts will enter uncharted territory March 7 when they make their first Regional appearance as a team at Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills.
The Eskymos qualified Jan. 10 by winning a triangular meet at Marquette with 120.7 points, meeting the MHSAA requirement of scoring more than 120 for the fourth time this season.
"It's awesome," said head coach Theresa Pascoe. "The coaches and girls are very excited because we're part of the program's history.
“Last year we had the skill and depth. We scored 119 on three occasions, but a couple things didn't quite go our way. We knew from last year that we still had the skill and depth."
Four of the team's nine gymnasts will compete in all-around: senior Maddie Block, junior Abbie Derouin and sophomores Caitlyn Davenport and Lizzy Sliva.
"I feel accomplished because we were so close last year," said Derouin. "It was a relief to find out we qualified. I needed to get an 8.5 on (uneven) bars to get the qualifying score and I got 8.6. The hardest part was waiting for the results. I was praying we'd get it and get that out of our way. It was a big sigh of relief to know we qualified.
“This is a big difference from last year. We're so much stronger this year because we know what to expect."
Davenport also was thrilled to learn the team had qualified.
"It was really surprising and exciting," she said. "We've never done this before at Esky. Everybody was so positive in practice after we got our fourth qualifying score. We were glad to get it done because then we could just work on higher routines. If we mess up, there's more margin for error.
“It feels like it will be more fun because there will so much support from our whole team. The competition downstate is definitely a lot harder, but with more difficulty in our routines we've been able to gain on them a little."
Senior Jasmine Clark will compete on balance beam, with classmate Sophie Slight on vault. Joining them are sophomores Haley Garcia (floor exercise) and Lexi Peippo (bars). Freshman Marissa Onate, who also swims for Gladstone through a co-op venture, will travel with the team as a manager.
"It's exciting being part of something that's good for the school and our coach," said Clark. "I went to the Regionals as an individual (entrant) last year. It will be nice to have all my teammates there this time."
The Eskymos received their first qualifying score Dec. 11 in a 123.65-95.6 victory at home over Negaunee.
"Our first two meets got us set up," said Pascoe. "We scored 113 at Tecumseh and 116 the next day (near Ann Arbor). I think that made us realize that it was possible to make it to Regionals. We had 14 falls on beam in our first meet. We had never been to Tecumseh and performed in very cramped quarters. All the schools have pretty much the same equipment, but everything is different at each school.
"When we scored 123.65 against Negaunee, it made the girls realize it was going to happen this year. We scored as high as 127 and know our potential is now above 120. Our goal is to score 127-130 at Regionals."
After winning at Marquette, the Eskymos competed at Valders and Antigo, Wis., where they scored 114.475 and 117.2 points, respectively.
"They tend to give higher scores downstate than in Wisconsin," said Clark. "In Wisconsin, they really score tight. It was a little harder getting low scores on floor, but a little more encouraging to get higher scores downstate."
Davenport believes the team did well in Wisconsin despite the lower scores.
"The scores were discouraging at times, but they gave us some good critiques which helped us downstate," said Davenport, who qualified for the Regional as an individual entrant a year ago. "I want to make it to the states again and get a higher team score.
“We've got to have some goals. We're just really excited to be going and so proud of what we've accomplished."
Pascoe said that while teams can enter as many as five gymnasts in each event, she decided to give everybody a chance to compete.
"We want to do this as a team," she added. "We qualified as a team, and we're going as a team."
John Vrancic has covered high school sports in the Upper Peninsula since joining the Escanaba Daily Press staff in 1985. He is known most prominently across the peninsula for his extensive coverage of cross country and track & field that frequently appears in newspapers from the Wisconsin border to Lake Huron. He received the James Trethewey Award for Distinguished Service in 2015 from the Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.
PHOTOS: (Top) Escanaba’s Maddie Block vaults during this season’s Elks Invitational in December. (Middle) Teammate Abbie Derouin sticks her landing from the uneven bars during a meet against Marquette. (Photos courtesy of the Escanaba Daily Press.)