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.)
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.)