RECORD IS FINALLY BROKEN


Raiders soar past 2004 score, take 2nd in meet
Individually Saturday, only two members of Medfordâs gymnastics team set or tied personal bests scores at the Antigo Invitational.
But collectively, they hit a score no Medford team has ever hit.
A multi-year chase for this core group of Raiders finally reached its goal when they accumulated a team score of 132.475 and placed second in higher level Maroon Division of the 14-team meet. They didnât just squeak by the old record of 130.35, they blew by it by 2.125 points.
Fittingly, the new record was punctuated by Kate Malchow. In the teamâs last routine of the day, the freshman capped a day where she set or tied personal records in each event by earning an 8.7 to tie teammate Brooklyn Bilz for eighth place in that event and finish with 33.825 all-around points, a 1.425-point improvement from her previous best score.
âWe got really close last year toward the end of the season,â junior Megan Wanke said of the team record. âIt was exciting, itâs definitely been one of the big priorities of this season.â
âOnce Kate started crying, I feel like everyone just started crying,â freshman Anna Wanke said.
âWe all started crying because we were happy we got it,â freshman Avery Purdy said.
âI asked the girls before the meet began, âwhatâs your goal today?ââ head coach Steve Cain said. âOf course the first thing was beat the school record for team score. I said, âOK, you can do it. You know you can do it.ââ Right away, the Raiders got the sense this might be their day. Their first event was the vault.
Medford earned 33.75 points, just off their seasonhigh of 34 they got at Rhinelander on Dec. 14. Brooklyn Bilz, Kennedy Bilz and Ulrich all tied for 18th with 8.45s, Malchow tied for 21st at 8.4 and Kara Hudak tied her best score of this season with a 7.8. Cain noted the Bilz sisters have identical average scores of 8.158 at this point in the season.
âTo show our consistency, three of the girls got 8.45s and one of them got 8.4,â Cain said. âThey all do the same vault. They all do the quarter, three-quarter vault. Theyâre all executing and completing their vault pretty similar to each other as far as what they need to have done for that. Kennedy keeps progressing. She increased her PR considerably by 0.3. Kate is so consistent. She tied her PR.â
âItâs getting better,â Kennedy Bilz said. âI just try to listen to whatever Steve says to do to fix it and everything and try my best at it.â
âRight after vault, Avery walked up to me and sheâs like, âI think we have a chance to beat the record,ââ Anna Wanke said.
âEveryone on vault got 8.4s except for Kara and she scored really high and I looked at everyone and said âtodayâs the day. Itâs going to happen,ââ Purdy said. âI had a really good feeling about that.â
The Raiders then set season high team scores on what often is their toughest events, the uneven bars and balance beam.
They earned 31.475 points on the bars, led by a fourth-place score of 8.125 by Kate Malchow, who beat her previous best of 8.0. Brooklyn Bilz was right behind her with an 8.1 that was her best score of this season. Makala Ulrich tied for 13th out of 31 gymnasts with her 7.7 and Megan Wanke nudged up from a 7.325 at Valders Jan. 25 to a 7.55 that tied for 16th. Avery Purdy tied her personal best with a 7.4 that placed 21st.
Marshfieldâs Gracie Holland won the event with a 9.15, while Caroline Rammi of Manitowoc (8.7) and Lakyn Sonday of Washburn (8.2) were second and third.
The Raiders then had the no-fall day theyâve been looking for on the balance beam and it resulted in a team score of 33.45, 0.9 points better than their previous best that was hit in the opening meet of the season.
Bilz tied Rammi for third with her 8.75 and Malchow took fifth by upping her score a half-point to 8.6. Megan Wanke inched up to an 8.1 and placed 10th out of 31 gymnasts, Ulrich was 11th at 8.0 and Anna Wanke returned to the lineup after a missing the last couple of weeks and posted a 7.65 that was good for 15th. Holland (9.45) and Jade Scholl of Marshfield (8.85) were the top two beam scorers.
âIt never happens, so it was good,â Megan Wanke said of the team having no falls. âItâs been a long time since Iâve been in a meet where there were no falls on beam.â
Heading into the floor exercise, the Raiders knew the record, which has stood since 2004, was ready to be broken. They figured their top four scorers had to average 7.9s to get it.
âAfter each event weâd be tallying up our scores,â Hudak said.
âI think it was Anna who told me weâre going to beat it because we always score better than (7.9s), so weâre going to beat it today,â Megan Wanke said.
Medfordâs 33.8 points on the floor just missed the teamâs season-best of 33.95 achieved on Dec. 7.
The 8.7s from Malchow and Bilz led the way. Malchowâs previous best was 8.45 in Valders. Megan Wanke moved up to an 8.4 an tied for 17th. Ulrich tied for 23rd at 8.0 and Purdy was 26th with a 7.5. Holland (9.55) and Sonday (9.3) were the top two gymnasts in the event.
âWhen Kate got done with her routine, she was the last one, she was so excited,â Cain said. âThe excitement for a club kid to get to high school, where itâs a whole different ball game. She was just overjoyed. She was so excited about that.â
âIt was pretty good, my best one for the year,â Malchow said.
Brooklyn Bilz placed fourth out of 17 all-around gymnasts in the Maroon Division with 34 total points, her second-best mark of the season. Malchowâs was fifth with her 33.825 points and Ulrich was ninth with 32.15 total points.
âMak was sick,â Cain said. âShe felt she couldnât perform 100%. I was like, if thatâs the way she was feeling and she did what she did, OK, well I canât wait until youâre back to 100%.â
Now that the record is finally theirs, the Raidersâ mission now is to keep pushing because they feel thereâs more to achieve in this final month of the season.
âI feel like itâs good when we all come together to achieve a goal that weâve all been wanting, for the freshmen, since the beginning of the season and for (the older girls) a long time,â Anna Wanke said.
âItâs nice because you feel like everybody gets to be a part of it and everyone can be happy about it,â Megan Wanke said. âBecause even all the girls that maybe didnât compete this weekend, they are still so much a part of it because they push all of us in practice so much harder. There is so much healthy competition between all of us for the spots that it pushes everyone to do better.â
âThese girls are very competitive against each other but in a positive way,â Cain said. âEveryone is just pushing everyone to be better. Thereâs no animosity about it.â
The home stretch starts with tonightâs home finale with Lakeland and Tuesdayâs dual at Rhinelander which will wrap up the dual-meet portion of their Great Northern Conference schedule. Both meets have 5:45 p.m. start times.
âThe ultimate goal is state,â Megan Wanke said. âActually the ultimate goal is sectional champs and beating Ashland (who has won eight of the last nine sectional titles).â

