BELLEVUE — Woodinville coach Kathie Koch figured Friday night’s Class 4A state gymnastics team finals would go down to the wire.
“Looking at scores [from previous meets] coming in, this was the closest between one-two-three that we’ve seen in my nine years here,” she said. “Our girls knew they needed to score well to do well.”
Overcoming three falls on beam, the Falcons delivered, edging a familiar opponent, Camas, by 0.825 to win the school’s second straight state title 180.4 to 179.575 at Sammamish High School.
The win gives Woodinville six state gymnastics titles in nine years. The Falcons have finished first or second at state in 15 of the past 16 seasons, winning the title nine times during that span. Woodinville and Camas have finished one-two in the past six meets.
Sumner closed out a strong season by placing third (173.95), followed by North Creek (163.85).
“The satisfaction this year comes from the fact we didn’t get many new people this year, so this state team is the basically the same team I had last year except those I lost to graduation,” Koch said. “So these kids really had to step up and fill some holes, and they did a really nice job.”
Few better than junior Emily Brouwers, who finished second in all-around with a score of 37.3, and was joined in the top 10 by teammates Katie Barker (fifth, 36.625) and Ainsley Mann (eighth, 36.15). Camas junior Madison Williams (37.3) edged Brouwers for the all-around title.
This was Brouwers’ first state meet in three seasons, following 2021’s COVID-canceled meet and missing out last year because of a severe, early-season ankle injury.
“I baffled a lot of doctors who wondered why it wasn’t broken,” she said. “I finally got my confidence back, and this year feels amazing to be able to do the skills and hit the routines I want.”
The Falcons needed to regain their confidence after their second rotation Friday when Brouwers and Barker, Woodinville’s team captain, were two of the three teammates who recorded falls during their beam routines.
“We were a little shaky on beam,” Barker said. “But everybody’s skills after that? Beautiful. Everybody really pulled it together after that. Floor happened next, and it was the most incredible rotation we’ve had in a while, and vault was amazing, too. I was really proud of our team.”
Following the beam rotation, Woodinville retreated to the warmup and Barker stepped forward.
“I said, this is what we have to do to keep the energy up,” she said. “We had beam, that was what happened, but the meet is not lost, even though after a bad event like that it can feel like that.”
Barker said her speech also served as a self-directed pep talk.
“Sometimes I find I’m talking to them how I want to talk to myself,” she said. “I was really disappointed with beam. It’s kind of unlike me to fall. I’m normally pretty solid on beam, and that was my first fall all season. Rough. By talking to them is like talking to myself, so it wraps everybody up in the right mental state.”
Redmond senior Jordan Begun captured the third-place medal in all-around, a repeat of her finish in 2022 and she posted Friday’s top score on beam.
“I got season-high on every event today except on floor, and I pulled out a new vault, so that was nice for me,” she said.
Notes
- In the Class 3A/2A individual event finals, junior Seema Borgmann of Sammamish, who won the all-around title Thursday night, took home first for beam with a score of 9.55.
- Julia Carter of Enumclaw won the vault title with a 9.65. Berkley Gorre of Shorecrest tied with Sadie McKulne of North Thurston for first on bars (9.475). Dezlyn Lundquist of Mead won floor (9.7).
- Complete results here.