WIAA DIV. 2 STATE GYMNASTICS - A GRAND FINALE FOR KRAUSE

WIAA DIV. 2 STATE GYMNASTICS

Holding every program record but one, there isn’t much Medford senior Kyla Krause hasn’t accomplished in high school gymnastics competition. One of her last goals was finally reached Saturday in her last meet as a Raider.

A year after coming up one spot short of a medal on the vault, Krause earned two medals in WIAA Division 2 individual state competition Saturday at Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High School.

For a good chunk of the meet, Krause was in first place in the uneven bars standings and wound up second, just 0.0167 points away from the state championship. Krause’s bars score of 9.2 broke her own school record of 9.05 set at last season’s Ashland Invitational.

A strong day in all four events put Krause third in the all-around standings at the end of the day with 36.0999 points, not far from her school record of 36.525 set at the Feb. 17 Great Northern Conference meet. In her fourth state appearance as an all-around, Krause easily beat her previous placements of 22nd and two ties for 17th place.

“It feels really good,” Krause said of finally medaling. “I wasn’t as nervous today so it felt pretty good. Because when you’re nervous it just doesn’t really go.”

The state weekend was a busy one for the Medford-Colby squad, who finished ninth Friday in the team competition and had four gymnasts compete in Saturday’s individual meet. Freshman Raylin Rothmeier placed 24th in the all-around standings, while Veronica Mateer was 15th and Bridget Cloud was 22nd on the balance beam. The team had a goal Friday of placing higher than last year’s seventh-place finish, but the Raiders kept things in perspective after falling a little short of that with a team score of 133.5832, well ahead of the 10th-place Ashland Co-op (123.1166) and just barely behind eighth-place West Bend West (133.5998).

“I felt like we all did good, it was just the scoring was harder,” Rothmeier said.

“We’re disappointed but we can’t be mad,” senior Kaileigh Mientke said.

“I’m so proud of everyone that made it,” senior Ellison Carbaugh said. “We all did great.”

“We looked at it as we were more proud that we even made it,” sophomore Delaina Meyer said. “We knew we weren’t going to place high here, but we made it.”

Individual day

The uneven bars was the second event of Saturday for the individual qualifiers from the Antigo sectional and Krause was the first one up in that rotation. She pretty much nailed her routine with smooth connections and transitions between the bars, she hit her giants and solidly stuck the dismount.

“I was shocked when I saw the score because it was also the school record, so that was good to do that at state,” Krause said. “It was just a good routine. I just thought of the little things to perfect, like pointing my toes and stuff.”

Krause said it was one of those events as a gymnast where it all came together.

“You can just feel it,” she said. “There’s like a certain point in your routine where you just know that you have it.”

Krause’s score stood as the leader until the final entrant in the fourth rotation of out five, junior Isabell Korn of the Westby Co-op, passed her with a 9.2167 that wound up winning the state title. Kaylee Frank of Elkhorn was third with a 9.1833. Medals go to the top six finishers in each state event. Krause is Medford’s first gymnastics medalist since Megan Strama was sixth on the floor in 2004.

Also on the bars, Rothmeier tied fellow Antigo sectional qualifier Abby Rombach of the Grantsburg Co-op for 22nd place as they both earned scores of 8.1667. Rothmeier’s sharp-looking routine resulted in her best score of the season, surpassing her sectional mark of 8.025.

The first event of the day for Krause and Rothmeier was the vault. Krause’s first attempt of two was her best, earning a score of 9.0333, good for a 12th-place tie with Korn. Mosinee’s Jaiden Reed, who got the fifth and final qualifying spot at the sectional withdrew from the competition, making Rothmeier and Rhinelander’s Alexis Smith, who tied for sixth that night, Reed’s replacements in the individual state vault competition. Rothmeier placed 22nd at 8.3, which she got on her first attempt. The change in vault qualifiers made Rothmeier an individual state qualifier in all four events.

“I think it went OK,” Rothmeier said of her all-around competition Saturday. “I’m just happy to be here as a freshman. I think there were like six freshmen in D2 counting me, so I’m just happy to be here. Today, when a girl dropped out of vault and I found I was actually in that individually too, I was excited.”

Rice Lake’s Avery Ash, who also qualified out of Antigo, repeated as the state champion on vault, tying Frank for first as they both had 9.4167s.

Ash, a junior, also won the balance beam with a Division 2 state-meet record score of 9.5833. For the second straight day, Medford-Colby had a solid outing on the beam. Krause placed eighth at 9.0333, Mateer’s 15th-place score of 8.5333 capped a string of five straight meets where she scored at that mark or better. Rothmeier had one fall, but still registered an 8.2333 to place 20th and Cloud had one fall but improved over Friday with an 8.0667 that placed 22nd.

The day ended with the floor exercise where Krause placed 15th with an 8.8333 and Rothmeier was 26th with a 7.95. Elkhorn’s Jenna Heindselman won the state title with a score of 9.3, while Morgan Siekert of the West Salem Co-op was second at 9.1833.

“I think they were all pretty good,” Krause said of her events Saturday. “No falls at all, so that felt really good.”

Krause trailed Ash (36.6166) and Korn (36.25) in the all-around standings. Abby Roecker of Waupun finished fourth with 36.0832. She was the runner-up last year and placed fourth two years ago.

Krause plans on competing in four club meets before turning her competitive attention to joining the University of Montevallo’s inaugural acrobatics and tumbling team next year.

“After the meet I was thinking about it being the last one of high school, but I wasn’t thinking that during the meet at all. I’ll remember just how our team always just comes together.”

Team day

While the Raiders knew they probably wouldn’t contend for the championship in Friday’s team competition, they knew the battle for the middle places would be tight. They set a season-high score on vault and had a solid day on the beam with just one fall amongst five gymnasts. The scoring on the bars and the floor left them short of where they needed to be to jump into the top five.

Medford-Colby scored 34.9499 vault points, which was the fourth-best total of the 10 Division 2 squads. Krause led the crew with a strong 9.2833 and Rothmeier’s 8.8333 was her second-best score of the season, surpassed only by the 9.0 she got at Antigo on Jan. 27.

Mientke capped her career with a personal-best 8.45 on her second attempt. “My form was good,” Mientke said. “My landing was rough, but my form made it better, made up for it.”

Meyer’s 8.3833 wasn’t far off her season-best of 8.55 and Carbaugh finished her career with an 8.05. Being at state was meaningful for the senior, who had to fight through ankle issues and surgeries to keep competing.

“It went pretty good,” Carbaugh said. “It was very emotional for me. It was nice that I competed at state my sophomore, junior and senior years.”

On the beam, which was the team’s first event of the day, Medford-Colby scored 33.45 points, which ranked seventh amongst the teams. Krause earned an 8.8, Mateer got a strong 8.6333, Rothmeier earned an 8.1667, Cloud got a 7.85 and Shayla Radlinger earned a 7.7833.

“For the most part, it was pretty good,” Mateer said of her efforts Friday. “My beam was pretty solid.”

“They were both kind of the same,” Cloud said of her Friday and Saturday beam routines. She was frustrated by her falls in each day in about the same spot in the routine, but she did recover nicely each time. “It was OK.”

“We’ve improved on beam so much this year,” Carbaugh said.

Floor was Medford-Colby’s second event of the meet. There, the Raiders totaled 32.9167 points to rank ninth. Krause led with an 8.8833, while Radlinger’s strong routine got her an 8.2, just ahead of Meyer’s 8.1667. Rothmeier’s routine looked better than the 7.6667 it received and Mateer earned that same score.

“Some judges didn’t see some of the skills that I thought I got,” Rothmeier said. “My triple turn, they saw as a double, so I didn’t get that and my last pass didn’t count.”

The team finished the day on the bars and totaled 32.2666 points, which again ranked ninth.

Krause earned an 8.7333, followed by Radlinger (7.8667), Meyer (7.8333), Mateer (7.8333) and Rothmeier (7.7667).

“I thought I had a good bar routine and my floor was good too,” Radlinger said of her day.

“I did my usual,” Meyer said. “I didn’t do an outstanding performance but I’m not mad about it. It was a good meet.”

Elkhorn won the state championship with a team score of 140.6835 that put it just ahead of the West Salem Co-op (140.2335). Perennial powers Mount Horeb (138.75) and Whitefish Bay (136.6832) were third and fourth, followed by Reedsburg (135.65), the Dodgeville Co-op (134.7667) and the Onalaska-Luther Co-op (134.5832).

“Overall it wasn’t a bad meet for us or anything,” Mateer said.

“It was still a pretty good score for us and it was good to have one last meet with our whole team together,” Krause said.

While Krause, Mientke and Carbaugh will move on, the rest of the crew is already looking forward to hopefully bringing the Raiders back to state for a seventh straight season.

“I’ve got some floor music picked out already,” Radlinger said. “I’m ready.”

“Our off-season begins now,” Meyer said. “Hopefully we come here again next year.”

Medford-Colby’s Bridget Cloud gets her balance beam routine started during Saturday’s WIAA Division 2 individual state gymnastics competition. Cloud’s routine earned a score of 8.0667, good for 22nd place. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS