Beam and bars highlight second-place finish
MEDFORD GYMNASTICS
Season-best team scores on the uneven bars and balance beam pushed the Medford Raiders to a second-place finish at Saturday’s Julie Langseth Gymnastics meet, hosted by the Antigo Red Robins.
The Raiders finished with 131.85 team points, marking their third straight meet in the 131-point range. The consistency, according to head coach Steve Cain, is good, but with February’s arrival, he and the Raiders are hoping to start nudging the numbers a little higher with each meet. The hope, of course, is to hit a peak at the Feb. 25 WIAA Division 2 sectional meet, also to be hosted by Antigo, and beyond.
West Bend West won the championship trophy with 134.85 points.
“This is where we are right now,” Cain said. “We can either stay where we are or we can still keep climbing.”
Medford’s 34.05 points on the beam marked a second straight season-best effort after the Raiders had gone through a mid-year rough patch in the event. Their score went 0.3 up points from a week earlier at Valders.
Senior Makala Ulrich led the way with a season-best 8.8 that tied her with Mosinee’s Avery Ahles for third place out of 50 gymnasts. They trailed Marshfi eld’s Hanna Merkel (8.95) and West Bend West’s Mel Princl (8.9). Raider Kate Malchow was fifth with an 8.65 that was her best score since setting the school record of 9.25 in the season’s first meet. Kyla Krause was seventh with an 8.45, freshman Veronica Mateer was 14th with a personal-best 8.15 and Avery Purdy tied for 27th with a 7.2 as a fall knocked her score down a bit.
“We had a total of three falls out of all the girls. That’s not bad,” Cain said. “They’re doing good. The scores are pretty reflective of how well they did on beam I thought. Veronica PR’d. She is an example of a girl who is going up in small increments. When you address something to fix with her, she hones in on it and she will actually remember that and she’ll focus on that and she’ll fix it.”
On bars, Medford scored 32.6 points, which was the best total since the Raiders scored 31.75 points in their seasonopening home invite. Like the beam, Cain said this is an event where he sees the Raiders having the potential to keep building and scoring even higher by the end of this month.
“We didn’t score as I’d like to on bars, but we didn’t do bad either,” he said. “We’re right up there.”
Ulrich and Krause tied for second place with scores of 8.5. Krause tied her personal best and Ulrich set a season-best with a score closer to her potential, which Cain said is a good sign for the home stretch. The only gymnast to do better than those two was Makayla Cibulka of West Bend West (8.75). Malchow tied for 11th at 7.85, freshman Shayla Radlinger tied her best mark of the season at 7.75, which tied her for 15th and Purdy was 27th at 7.15.
“For girls like Kyla, Makala and Kate, they have to get their routines ultimately perfected,” Cain said. “The judges went over some things with me about every little thing in their routines and each skill as far as their legs, any pauses that they see. Now they’re going to hammer away because they’ve seen their routines. They remember them, so it’s easier for them to judge. They want to see that they did what they were supposed to after last time.”
Krause had a solid second vault to earn an 8.7 and just miss winning the event. She was a tenth behind Princl. Ulrich tied for ninth at 8.4, Ellison Carbaugh tied for 23rd at 8.15, just ahead of Malchow’s 25th-place 8.1 and Mateer tied for 31st at 7.9. The Raiders scored 33.35 points, which was just below their season average.
“We had quite a few landings with a step or two that definitely took away some tenths,” Cain said.
Some uncharacteristic bobbles in the floor exercise put Medford at 31.85 points for the day, almost two points short of their season average. Ulrich led the Raiders with an 8.2 that tied for 10th place and Malchow tied for 13th at 8.1. Krause tied for 20th with a 7.8, Mateer was 23rd at 7.75 and Radlinger was 39th at 7.05. Princl won it with a 9.1 and Ashland’s Catie McPherson got a 9.05.
“There were falls on our tumbling passes that were unfortunate because it left a few of the girls with less than an 8.0 score when they can score above that easily,” Cain said. “The judges sat with me and went over some things as far as what they need to do, what they’re not doing. It’s just all little things that if they get them all squared away, they’re going to be phenomenal.”
Ulrich tied Merkel for third in the all-around standings with 33.9 points, her best total of 2021-22. Princl (34.85) and Cibulka (34.65) were the meet’s top two scorers. Krause was sixth with 33.45 points and Malchow was ninth with 32.7.
Medford is at Mosinee tonight, Thursday, for a 5:45 p.m. meet that is the last Great Northern Conference Small Division dual of the winter. The Raiders will host Wisconsin Rapids Feb. 10 in a GNC crossover before going to the Ashland Invitational on Feb. 12.
“What happens Thursday, the next week Thursday and Saturday, those three meets, will determine our strongest lineup for conference and sectionals,” Cain said.
