United, Farmington Vaults to Team Title
March 9, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
ROCKFORD – Farmington Unified gymnastics coach Jeff Dwyer knows what a championship team looks like.
And he had a feeling he saw one before Friday’s MHSAA Team Final at Rockford High School.
The calm. The energy to compete. The singing.
The gymnastics championship meet often comes down to the smallest of margins, and this time the top three teams were separated by a mere three tenths of a point.
Farmington United was just a few tenths better than the rest, scoring 144.750 to edge Northville and Rockford for a first MHSAA title in this sport since 2006.
“We are such a team, and we are so strong together,” Farmington United senior Elisa Bills said. “No matter what other teams are doing, no matter what high score we see, we forget about it and keep going and continue to the next event.
“It didn’t matter if someone fell or hit. It didn’t matter, because as a team, we were happy. And we just put everything out there and did our best.”
Farmington United – made up this season of athletes from Farmington and North Farmington – was followed by Northville at 144.550 and Rockford at 144.450. Northville’s finish was its highest since coming in runner-up as part of a co-op team with Novi in 2002. Rockford’s finish similarly was impressive – the Rams were competing for their fourth straight MHSAA Finals championship, but doing so without a senior and with only three juniors taking the mat.
Farmington United had a bit more experience, starting with Bills, the reigning Division 2 individual champion who will compete for a repeat title Saturday. One of two seniors on her team, Bills posted the highest all-around score of Friday’s competition, 36.700. Junior Kacey Noseworthy had the day’s fourth-highest all-around at 36.450, and senior Emily Stecevic also came up big with a 34.950.
As a team, Farmington United didn’t place first on any of the four apparatus – but came in second on bars, beam and floor. Juniors Shelby Smith and Ava Farquhar, sophomore Lily Tyler and freshman Sydney Schultz also contributed scores.
“This just kinda floored me because these are not easy to win. I don’t even know if they know what they just did,” said Dwyer, who has led the program since 1986 and guided it to three straight titles from 2004-06 and runner-up finishes in 2008 and 2010.
“There’s teams – like I was looking at them at Regionals and earlier today – I didn’t have to do a lot of coaching. They were the ones with game faces on, so I felt good about that. Some years you’ve gotta just get them on – ‘Hey we’re at the state meet, at the Regional meet’ – and I told them before this meet, if I had to bet on a team to have a chance to win it, I’m going to bet with you guys.”
That might not have seemed like the best idea even a few weeks ago. Bills missed much of the second half of the regular season with a knee injury and didn’t return full strength until the Regional a week ago.
Her teammates picked up the slack, including finishing first Jan. 31 at the Canton Invitational without her against a field including many of the state’s top teams.
Coming back from the injury admittedly was the “scariest thing ever” for Bills. But there’s no way she would’ve missed this. “Coming back and winning this title was the best thing – all I wanted to do,” she said.
Meanwhile, there was little disappointment as Northville gymnasts took photos with their runner-up trophy Friday night. The Mustangs had improved from ninth in 2017, and cut the margin against Farmington significantly after finishing nearly four points behind Bills and her teammates at last week’s Regional.
Senior Erin McCallum and sophomore Maria Scavnicky competed all-around, posting scores of 36.550 and 35.325, respectively. As a team, Northville posted the highest scores on both bars and beam.
“Since the very beginning, this is what we’ve wanted to do,” said McCallum, whose all-around score was the day’s third highest. “Even if things didn’t go our way, we just kept pushing.
“(From the start this season) I could just tell – people wanted to be here, they wanted to work hard and they wanted to do this.”
Rockford finished first as a team on floor, and Brighton was first on beam. Livonia Blue, Brighton, Plymouth and Howell all cleared 140 points to follow the top three in that order, respectively.
Rockford junior Reagan Ammon (36.675), Howell sophomore Taylor Gillespie (36.350), Brighton senior Sarah Mosset (36.275) and Livonia Blue freshman Kenna Fedrigo (36.050) also broke 36 points all-around.
Individual competition in both divisions begins at noon Saturday at Rockford.
Click for full Team Finals results.
PHOTOS: (Top) Farmington United begins celebrating after hearing it has won its first MHSAA team championship since 2006. (Middle) Farmington United's Kacey Noseworthy performs her bars routine. (Below) Rockford's Morgan Case works toward her 9.4 on floor exercise. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
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.)