A FIRST TUMBLING FALCON
While possessing gymnastics skills that have her name all over Medford’s record board in that sport, Kyla Krause is going to take an exciting new course once she completes her senior year.
On Friday, Krause put pen to paper at Medford Area Senior High, signing her National Letter of Intent to accept a scholarship offer from the University of Montevallo to become part of the school’s inaugural acrobatics and tumbling team.
Montevallo is a school of about 2,600 students located in central Alabama and is an NCAA Division II program.
Acrobatics and tumbling is considered an emerging sport for women, meaning it is recognized by the NCAA and is intended to help schools provide more athletic opportunities for women with the hope of allowing the sport to reach NCAA championship status.
There are close to 60 acrobatics and tumbling programs nationwide, more than half of which are based at Division II schools, though teams currently compete across divisions under the direction of the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association (NCATA). The sport was founded in 2009 and is building momentum with more schools adding it each year.
Montevallo is in one of two recognized acrobatics and tumbling conferences, Conference Carolinas. Acrobatics and tumbling is a spring sport on the college athletics calendar.
“It’s a mixture of cheer and gymnastics,” Krause said. “I like it because gymnastics is more of an individual sport and this is mainly a team sport.”
After finding each other through Krause’s online sports recruiting account, Krause took her official visit to Montevallo in November and said she knew right away once she did that this was the place for her.
“It felt like a family and, being 15 hours away, that was important to me,” Krause said. “Just the moment I stepped on the campus I just fell in love with it. The coaching staff and all the staff at the college are very supportive of this new program.
“I was looking at other options but (Montevallo) just made this decision easy.”
Krause said she plans to major in elementary education.
Kati Horstmann is the Falcons’ first acrobatics and tumbling head coach and she brings a strong résumé to Montevallo. She also started the acrobatics and tumbling program at NCAA Division III Trine University in Indiana in 2019 and oversaw steady progress in that time, culminating with a trip to the NCATA Division III event finals in 2023. Horstmann competed for four seasons at Baylor, the sport’s preeminent program. She was part of four national championship teams with the Bears and won an individual title at the 2019 nationals in the acro element. She was a three-time national pyramid qualifier.
Jeff Krause, Kyla’s father, said Horstmann told the family her hope is to start the program with mostly a freshman group so it can build and grow together.
An acrobatics and tumbling meet typically consists of two to three teams taking part in head-to-head competition. The meet is made up of six events –– compulsory, acro, pyramid, toss, tumbling and the team event and lasts typically 1.5 to two hours. Teams alternate in each event with the home team competing last in each heat.
“I’m mainly going to do the tumbling part and she’s going to try me in top and base,” Krause said. “It’s like the cheerleading part where you can do the flier or the base. She’s going to try me in both to see where I fit in best.”
Among those attending Friday’s signing ceremony were Krause’s parents, Jeff and Heidi, her sister Autumn and brother Nick and current and past coaches including Andrée Brushaber, Megan Yanko, Kari Wanke, Steve Cain and Jaylene Lannet.
“It’s awesome,” said Cain, Krause’s high school head coach the past three seasons. “I was working with the (Rainbow Gymnastics) club program when she was little and it’s been fun just watching her develop. When she hit freshman year, she qualified for state, team and individually. Nothing fazes that girl. She’s strong. She’s built for gymnastics and it shows. She wants to go for the gold and it’s pretty cool to see her get this oppor-tunity. As a coach and working with her for so many years, outstanding. It’s really neat to see.”
“I’m really excited for her because she really loved it there,” said Brushaber, the current head coach of the Medford-Colby high school program. “She went there for a weekend and came back and she felt like, ‘this is it,’ right away. I’m only on the tail end of it. It’s really neat to see, a girl going all the way to Alabama, from the small town of Medford. She put in the dedication, the hard work and isn’t just riding it out. For her senior year, she’s built so many skills just over the summer. With the timing she hasn’t been able to perform those yet. But we will. It’s coming, January’s coming. I’m just really happy for her. She deserves it. She’s worked really hard for this. It couldn’t happen to a nicer girl.”
With the decision and signing out of the way, Krause’s focus is to chase some goals in her senior year with the Raiders. An ankle injury has slowed her start to the 2023-24 season in Medford-Colby’s first three meets, but she expects to be at full strength once the brunt of schedule hits in January and February.
“I want to have a podium (top six) finish at state and finish it out with the team at state,” Krause said.
Krause just missed the podium in WIAA Division 2 state competition last March, finishing seventh in the vault with a score of 9.333. She was the 2022-23 Great Northern Conference Large Division Gymnast of the Year and is the Raiders’ program record holder with scores of 9.4 on vault, 9.05 on the uneven bars and 35.55 all-around. She’s gotten as high as 9.3 on the floor exercise. The Raiders have qualified for state as a team as sectional champions in each of Krause’s first three seasons.
“Kyla recently shared an old video from when she was little in Level 4 or something like that,” Brushaber said. “It was so cute and I was like this is awesome because the kids at Rainbow need to understand when you stay at it, you work hard, this could be you too. I’m just really excited for her.”
Kyla Krause
