Emily Moore didn’t break Columbus North’s all-around record like she did in last year’s Columbus East Sectional, but she wasn’t far off.
The sophomore swept the four individual events and the all-around in the gymnastics sectional for the second consecutive year Friday night to lead the fourth-ranked Bull Dogs to the team title with a 109.4.
“I’ve been working on just trying to clean everything up for regional and state,” Moore said. “I’m trying to get a new vault for state.”
While North cruised to the team title as expected, the host Olympians were locked in a battle for the second and third qualifying spots to the March 7 East Regional.
The Olympians came out on top in that battle. In a scrum that saw the second-through-seventh place teams separated by less than five points, East claimed second with a 103.775.
“We advance, and that’s what’s important,” East coach Nancy Kirshman said. “We’re excited about that. They’ve worked hard, and they deserve it.”
Moore, who scored a 38.675 in the all-around last year, put up a 38.15 on Friday. She won the vault (9.575), bars (9.35), beam (9.625) and floor (9.6).
Bull Dog senior Sami Heathcote finished second behind Moore on the bars (8.85) and floor (9.25) and placed third on the vault (9.25) on her way to a second-place all-around finish with a 35.725.
“It’s not the greatest that we’ve done, but it wasn’t terrible,” Heathcote said. “I thought that all the events were pretty good. I kind of know that I’m not going to beat Emily unless she has a really bad night, and I have a really good one, so I was very satisfied with how I did.”
North’s Lindsey Mullis finished third on the bars (8.825). Alayne Davis was fifth on both the vault (9.075) and floor (9.025).
“It was a good performance,” North co-coach Bob Arthur said. “We’re certainly not going to turn away a 109, but we are capable of better. We weren’t terribly strong on bars tonight. I think bars and beam, we could have done a little bit better. We have still a lot of execution errors that we have to clean up.”
The Bull Dogs started with a 26.6 on the beam and followed with a 27.875 on the floor, 27.9 on the vault and 27.025 on the bars.
“I think they did a great job,” North co-coach Sandy Freshour said. “Starting first up on beam, and to go out and have the first three hit routines was awesome. We’ve been spending a lot of time on new skills that we want to put into routines moving toward the state meet, so we sacrificed a little bit on the number of repetitions we’ve done on full routines to do a lot of work on our skills.”
Meanwhile, the Olympians were led by junior Taylen Lane. Lane finished second on the vault (9.375) and beam (9.275) and third in the all-around with a 35.625. A fall on her final tumbling pass on her final event, the floor, allowed Heathcote to slip past Lane for second in the all-around by a tenth of a point.
“I’m really proud with how everyone did, especially with it being sectional,” Lane said. “Usually, the judges are harder than in the regular season. I think at regional, it’s going to be tougher, but I still think if we push hard and do our best, we can make it (to state).”
Also for East, Elise LaSell finished fourth on the floor (9.05), and Makyna Mullins was fifth on the bars (8.575). The Olympians opened with a 26.75 on the vault, followed by a 24.85 on the bars, 26.025 on the beam and 26.15 on the floor.
“We had four people stay on beam, and anytime you can do that, it boosts that score,” Kirshman said. “Bars was low scoring, and it just was low scoring all night long for everybody. We had a decent vault and a decent floor.”
Bloomington North scored a 102.15 to claim the third and final team-qualifying spot to regional, which will begin at 1 p.m. March 7 at East.
