MAINTAINING DOMINANCE
WIAA DIV. 2 GYMNASTICS
Sectional title makes it 4 straight state berths
They may not have the history of Division 2 programs like Whitefish Bay, Mount Horeb or River Falls yet, but the Medford Raiders continue to show they’re a team of the present when it comes to WIAA gymnastics by qualifying for the program’s fourth straight state berth in team competition.
The Raiders claimed their third straight WIAA Division 2 sectional championship Friday in Antigo, topping a seven-team field with 134.925 points earned in the four events. Medford got past fellow state qualifier Antigo (132.525) and third-place challenger Ashland (130.475) to earn this year’s spot at the state meet, which will be a one-day event Friday at Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High School with individual and team competition starting at 1 p.m.
Friday’s victory was indeed a team effort. Where one gymnast may have faltered a bit someone else in that event seemed to pick up her game and make up for it, keeping the Raiders right at the 134-135 point level they’ve been on for the past month.
“They knew going in there was a pretty good chance they were going to make it to state,” head coach Steve Cain said. “But they didn’t take it for granted. That’s something all coaches worry about. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t let your guard down, give it 110%.”
“I think we did really good,” junior Avery Purdy said. “We had amazing beam routines. We had some good vaults. We had some good everything, honestly. There were little things here and there on each event, but there also were like really good things to pull out of each event.”
Junior Kate Malchow had the biggest of days, smashing her own personal record and setting a new school record in the all-around competition with 35.275 points in the meet. She won that sectional title as well as titles on the balance beam and the uneven bars. She missed matching her own school record on beam by 0.05 points.
Senior Makala Ulrich didn’t have her best day overall, but she did in the floor exercise, setting a personal-best and sectional championship score of 9.25. Sophomore Kyla Krause just missed her school record of 9.4 on the vault with a winning score of 9.35. Purdy had a personal- best score of 8.4 on the balance beam which qualified her individually for state. Malchow added an individual qualifying score of 8.8 on vault, Krause was second on bars at 8.1 and Krause qualified for state all-around competition with her fourth-place total of 33.575 points.
Medford started Friday’s meet on balance beam where Krause and Ulrich didn’t get off to perfect starts, earning scores of 7.8 and 7.925, which got them 12th and 10th places respectively. But Malchow, Purdy and freshman Veronica Mateer stepped up after that, giving the Raiders and their fans the first sign that this would be another good day.
“Kyla fell on her aerial which is not usual for her,” Cain said. “So that was a snafu right there. So we were like, ‘where is this going to take us?’ Makala didn’t really have any falls. She just had some bobbles and wobbles that were enough to put her score down to where it was, which is unfortunate because she’s usually a very strong contender on beam and she still is. We haven’t lost sight of that fact going into state. She could really do something phenomenal there.
“Then Kate got up there, and it was one of those deals where she didn’t miss anything,” he added. “She didn’t have a lot of wobbles. She had a couple of minor ones where she straightened them out real quick. She accomplished what was set on in her head. She did it with a 9.2 and first place. Beam champion at sectionals. Pretty awesome.”
“That was the first routine in three meets that I’ve stuck all my stuff,” said Malchow, who set her school record of 9.25 in the season’s first meet. “I’ve been falling on my jumps, so I’ve been working on them to actually land them.”
Purdy’s 8.4 was good for fifth place and a jump from her previous best of 8.1.
“I threw my cartwheel roundoff and I switched all my jumps to get a couple extra tenths here and there,” Purdy said. “I put it in on Tuesday before the meet. It just happened to work really well. I was able to land all of it. It was pretty exciting getting a PR because my skills aren’t the highest, so I don’t score 8s all the time.”
“The look on her face, the overall feeling of it was just priceless,” Cain said. “She is one girl that has been fighting hard, she’s been working hard on beam probably more than anybody the whole season and then boom, there she is with an 8.4 going to state. How much better can you get than that?”
Mateer added a seventh-place score of 8.15 that tied her personal record.
The Raiders went to floor next where Ulrich got her redemption with her 9.25, which beat Rice Lake freshman Avery Ash by 0.05 to win the event. Antigo’s Kaley Zarda (9.175) and Claire Musolff (9.025) weren’t far behind and Ashland’s Catie McPherson (8.9) got the fifth state spot.
“It was exciting,” Ulrich said. ‘I’m hoping that I can get even closer to the school record (9.375) on Friday. It’s the smallest things you can think of yet that I’m trying to perfect.”
Malchow’s 8.875 was a tenth off her personal record and put her in eighth place.
“All of my tumbling passes are getting stronger,” she said. “My one and a half is getting better, more consistent than it used to be. My front handspring is better than it was because I didn’t have that consistently either at the beginning of the year.”
Mateer tied for 10th at 8.5, tying her personal-best again, Krause was 15th at 8.325 and freshman Shayla Radlinger tied for 19th at 7.925, not far from her best of 8.1. Medford scored 34.95 points on the floor.
“Kyla’s floor routine was a beautiful routine,” Cain said. “She had a couple of stumbles but it was enough to take a couple tenths away. But then Veronica is there and picks her up.”
The Raiders scored 34.75 points on the vault, led by Krause’s winning 9.35. Malchow tied McPherson for third with her 8.8. They were just behind Ash (8.95).
“Kyla did her Yurchenko,” Cain said. “It’s going to be hard for anybody to beat Kyla. When you watch the video, she’s flipping it nice and landing it nice. She’s spot on. For Kate to get an 8.8 was pretty decent. She didn’t fall. She got it opened up sooner. She can make it bigger. She can score above a 9. That’s where some of her work will be this week.”
“If I just fix the landing a little bit then I can probably get the school record or a really high score,” Krause said. “I’m right where I want to be.”
“It was more than I expected,” Malchow said of her most successful Yurchenko vault so far. “I didn’t expect to land it. That was the first time I landed it. I was really surprised. I was happy with it for sure.”
Sophomore Ellison Carbaugh and Mateer tied for 11th with 8.3s and Ulrich was 13th with her 8.25. She attempted her tsuk vault for just the second time this season and didn’t hit like she did a week earlier at the Great Northern Conference meet.
“The goal is just to land everything this weekend and hope for the best,” Ulrich said. “It was just the second meet I threw it since my sophomore year so I can’t be really mad. I still flipped it and didn’t bail.”
Carbaugh and Mateer both pulled off solid quarter/three-quarter vaults, but both said they have room to improve on their landings this week.
“It was good,” Carbaugh said. “I wish I would have stuck it. I normally do. I just take one step normally, a little one.”
“(Mateer) has so much power,” Ulrich said. “It’s not a bad thing, it’s just hard to slow your power down. That’s something for next year where she can always add another twist.”
Medford finished on bars where Malchow’s 8.4 and Krause’s 8.1 topped a field of 34 entrants. Antigo’s Andrea Shestak was third at 8.05, Ash was fourth at 8.025 and McPherson was fifth at 8.0.
“The placings were like a quarter or a tenth apart, so it was really close,” Krause said.
“I just focused on staying tight and making sure my legs were straight on my bail,” Malchow said. “My giants were faster than they have been.”
Radlinger tied for seventh with a 7.65, just off her best of 7.9.
“It wasn’t as good as I wanted,” she said. “I’m working on cleaning it up.”
Purdy was 11th at 7.4 and Ulrich had a tough outing, placing 17th at 6.9.
The meet’s state-qualifying allarounds are Malchow (35.275), Ash
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(35.025), McPherson (34.55), Krause (33.575) and Zarda (33.425). Ulrich held the previous Medford school record of 34.85 for just over a year.
On to state
This is the second year of a new state meet format that combines the team and individual competitions into one day. The older gymnasts who went through the separate two-day events in 2019 and 2020 said they have mixed feelings about the one-day format.
The meet returns to Wisconsin Rapids after last year’s D2 meet was held in La Crosse due to Covid protocols.
“I think that’s more fun and you get more bonding time between the meets,” Malchow said of the old two-day format. “It seems more like a state meet.”
“To me this feels a little more like a club meet,” said Ulrich, who added that she’s glad the meet is back in Wisconsin Rapids and she does see the advantage of gymnasts not being fatigued for individual competition in the old format a day after the team competition.
Regardless of how it’s held, the goals for Medford remain the same –– to end the season with a bang.
“I think we’ve peaked at the right time compared to other seasons,” Purdy said. “I think we’ve all built up our skills and got them perfected at the right time. Now it’s just the little tiny things like a pointed toe, a dropped arm.”
“(This week) is kind of just more about perfecting your routines than anything,” Ulrich said.
“I think it would be nice to beat the team record again,” Malchow said. The school record team score is 135.175, which Medford set Feb. 12 in Ashland.
“We want to be really supportive, to make sure we cheer as much as we possibly can,” Purdy said.
“My goal is for the team to place in the top five,” Cain said. The Raiders finished sixth out of eight teams with a team score of 134.75 last year, and they were fifth out of 10 teams in 2020 with a then school-record team score of 134.901.
Medford seniors Quinton Tlusty (l.) and Nick Buchan pressure Hurley’s Chandler Walowinski during the second half of Thursday’s Senior Night win.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
