A better day on three of four events for Raiders in the dome

SNOWFLAKE INVITATIONAL

Just over a week after enduring what they felt was a rough dual meet in Rhinelander, the Medford Raiders returned to the Hodag Dome on Dec. 29 and left feeling better about their third-place finish in the rescheduled, seven-team Snowfl ake Invitational. The Raiders scored 126.95 points, slightly higher than the 126.875 they scored on Dec. 21, with one event potentially being all that separated them from winning the meet.

That honor went to the Marshfield Tigers, who scored 129.225 points to edge runner-up Ashland (127.475). Antigo took fourth with 125.525 points, followed by Medford’s Great Northern Conference Small Division rivals Mosinee (111.9), Rhinelander (106.3) and Lakeland (96.825).

“All in all, it was a much better day,” Medford head coach Steve Cain said.

Kyla Krause earned first-place finishes on the uneven bars and vault while nearly winning the meet’s all-around championship with 32.3 total points. She was just 0.425 points behind winner Tessa McFarlane of Ashland. Makala Ulrich tied Antigo’s Claire Musolff for third with 32.125 all-around points and Kate Malchow was 11th with 31.275 points.

In the Raiders’ first meet without injured all-around Anna Wanke, junior Avery Purdy and freshmen Veronica Mateer and Shayla Radlinger ably filled in for her in those spots in the lineup.

The uneven bars was Medford’s first event of the day and the event the Raiders struggled at most in the Dec. 21 meet. But this time, they were solid, scoring 30.3 points, the most of any team in the meet.

Krause’s winning score was 7.9, just enough to get her ahead of four gymnasts who earned 7.8s, including Ulrich. Musolff, Marshfield’s Ellie Jensen and Ashland’s Jaycee Erickson were the others. Malchow tied Marshfield’s Karsyn Miller for 10th, Purdy tied Ashland’s Catie McPherson for 12th at 7.2 and Carbaugh was 20th at 6.7 in her first varsity bars routine.

“Bars were a little bit better,” Cain said, noting that some of the girls are working on some upgrades to their routines to increase their scoring potential. “We still have a little ways to go.”

Unfortunately, the next event –– the balance beam –– did not go as well as eight falls dropped Medford’s point total for the event to 29.4, a season-low by over three points. Along with falls come deductions for series not being completed.

“Eight falls is on the high side,” Cain said. “It was disheartening to have that many falls. We did not perform to the best of our abilities. You can’t really blame it on anything. It’s one of those deals where we have to take the attitude that it wasn’t a good day, what do we have to do to fix this?”

Malchow tied for 10th at 7.7, Ulrich tied for 13th at 7.4, Radlinger was 17th at 7.3, Purdy was 22nd at 7.0 and Krause was 24th at 6.7. Marshfield’s Hanna Merkel won with an 8.7.

To the Raiders’ credit, they bounced back in a big way in their last two events of the day.

It started in the floor exercise, where the Raiders were strong as usual. Ulrich led Medford with a third-place score of 8.725, just ahead of Krause’s 8.7. Malchow was 10th at 8.275 and Mateer debuted with a solid 8.15 that tied her for 12th place with Ashland’s Avria Dugger and beat her best JV score by two-tenths. Radlinger improved to a 7.8, good for 20th place. McPherson won with a 9.225, just ahead of Antigo’s Kaley Zarda (9.025). Medford scored 33.85 floor points, trailing only the 34.425 scored by Ashland.

“On floor, we really picked it up,” Cain said. “The girls did a nice job.”

Medford finished with another of its usually strong events, the vault, and got a winning score of 9.0 from Krause.

“Kyla did a beautiful pike vault,” Cain said. “She didn’t really even step out on the landing. One judge just mentioned she was just a little off in the shape of her landing with the pike vault, but otherwise she said it was a beautiful vault.”

Ulrich tied Erickson and Antigo’s Andrea Shestak for ninth with her 8.2, Mateer and Carbaugh were part of a fourway tie for 12th with 8.1s and Malchow tied for 21st at 7.9. Marshfield’s Sophie Nikolay was second behind Krause with an 8.8.

The Raiders are now off until Jan. 15 when they’ll compete in the River Falls Invitational.

Kyla Krause