Columbus North’s Emily Moore poses with her medals for finishing first in the all-around, beam and floor exercise and fifth place in the vault during the IHSAA gymnastics state finals at Worthen Arena in Muncie, Ind., Saturday, March 12, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
MUNCIE — Gymnastics insiders say the balance beam is the toughest of the four events, and as a result, the toughest event on which to begin.
Emily Moore wasn’t fazed.
The Columbus North senior broke her own school record with a 9.825, and that allowed her to defend her state title on the beam. Moore also added a title on the floor and in the all-around competition to walk away with three gold medals in the final competition of her career.
Moore had finished third in the all-around as a freshman, .175-point out of first, and second last year, .125-point out of first. This year, she won by six-tenths of a point.
“I’m really happy about it,” Moore said. “I’ve been wanting to win for the past four years, and now, it’s finally here.”
Moore’s winning beam routine may have come as a surprise to some after she fell off the beam in five consecutive meets prior to last week’s Franklin Central Regional.
“Looking back, I think I only made a couple beam routines this whole season,” Moore said. “Nailing my last beam routine at regional helped me a lot.”
Moore won the floor with a 9.725, then tied for fifth on the vault with a 9.55. That gave her a lead of six-tenths of a point in the all-around going into the final rotation.
Fortunately for Moore, she had enough of a cushion that a fall on her first attempt to mount the bars didn’t matter. With the half-point deduction, she finished 12th on the bars with a 9.25, but her 38.275 all-around score was six-tenths of a point better than runner-up Elly Kiran of Crown Point’s 37.675
“The board that I jump off of, I set it too far, so that when I was jumping to (the bars), I completely missed it,” Moore said. “It was really nice to (have that lead to) take off a little bit more pressure.”
Meanwhile, North freshman Reese Euler had a stellar state meet debut. Euler finished fifth on the bars (9.375), tied for fifth on the beam (9.225) and earned a third medal with a sixth-place finish in the all-around (37.575).
“I’m really happy with how I did today,” Euler said. “My goal was to hit 4 for 4 events, and that’s what I did.”
Unfortunately for the Bull Dogs, they missed by two-tenths of a point of finishing on the podium with a top-four team finish. They took fifth with a 107.825. Crown Point won with a 111.475.
North scored a 26.45 on the beam, 27.1 on the floor, 27.35 on the vault and a 26.925 on the bars.
“I don’t know if it was our best, but we still pulled through at the end,” Moore said.
“I think we overall as a team did good,” Euler added. “There were some things that we could have done better, but I think overall, we did as good as we could have.”
Junior Alli Chambers finished 25th in the all-around with a 30.825. Junior Lindsey Mullis tied for 28th on the bars with an 8.375.
“I’m proud of how the girls did,” North co-coach Kaitlyn Rediker said. “They gave it all they had today.”
The Bull Dogs were ranked 10th in the final state coaches poll the last week of the regular season, so Rediker and co-coach Bob Arthur were pleased with the fifth-place state finish.
“We had a good year,” Arthur said. “There’s no doubt that the girls progressed steadily and continually throughout the season, and to end up with fifth place is not bad, considering where started the season. We obviously hoped we could have been on the pedestal this year, but that gives us something to shoot for next year.”
