Columbus North’s Reese Euler, center, celebrates with teammates and co-coach Kaitlyn Rediker after a successful bars routine during a gymnastics meet at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Monday, Feb. 21, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
As the gymnastics regular season drew to a close Monday night, Columbus North and Columbus East showed that they just might be peaking at the right time.
The 10th-ranked Bull Dogs put up their highest score of the season, and the host Olympians amassed their second-best score of the year in a 109.3 to 100.2 North victory.
“I was really impressed with how they did,” North co-coach Kaitlyn Rediker said. “They came in with a lot of energy, and we’ve been working hard to finalize our skills before Saturday at sectional, and they put them in their routines today and really showed us what they have.”
Bull Dog senior Emily Moore tied her own school record with a 9.85 on the floor and recorded her best all-around score of the season in winning with a 38.3. Moore also won the bars with a 9.75 and beam (9.0) and tied with teammate Reese Euler for first on the vault (9.7).
“I’m really happy about it,” Moore said. “It’s my season best, and toward the end of the season, I just want to keep going up. I’m still a little upset with falling on beam, but like with the other events, it makes up for it.”
Besides tying with Moore for first on the vault, Euler finished second on the bars (9.55), beam (8.8) and floor (9.5) on her way to a second-place all-around finish with a 37.55. Alli Chambers finished fourth on the beam (8.3) and all-around (33.05), tied with teammate Marieme Niang for fourth on the vault (8.6) and tied with teammate Angie Villegas for fourth on the beam (8.1).
“I’m really proud of all of us,” Moore said. “We’ve really been focusing in practice on all the little things, as well as with big things, too, like pointing toes and all of the little things.”
North’s score was nearly two points better than its previous season-best of 107.45 in Thursday’s tri-meet win at Seymour.
“We continue to preach to the girls that if they can all bring up their individual scores by a couple or three tenths (of a point), then you’re going to be able to bring those team scores up by two points or so, and tonight, they were able to do that,” North co-coach Bob Arthur said. “We kind of pulled it together. Beam was the only event we kind of struggled on, and we have a whole ’nother point there. We could have easily been 110 if we could have been on top of beam. Hopefully, we’ll pull it all together on Saturday.”
Meanwhile, the Olympians reached the century mark for the second consecutive meet, approaching the 101.95 they scored in Wednesday’s win against Owen Valley.
East’s Cami Warren finished third on the vault (8.8), beam (8.7) and floor (8.95) en route to a third-place all-around finish with a 34.2. Winter Shaver took fourth on the vault (8.7) and fifth in the all-around (32.8). Reagan Mount was third on the bars (8.35).
“We did have some good strong points,” East co-coach Katie Menefee said. “We kind of fell apart on beam a little bit, but that’s the nature of the beast when it comes to gymnastics. But I think overall, we did well.”
“They really pulled it back together for floor,” East co-coach Melissa Dishinger added.
Both teams will compete in the East Sectional at 1 p.m. Saturday. The top three teams advance to regional.
