The Columbus East gymnastics team was preparing for its final tuneup for sectional action in Wednesday night’s dual meet against Owen Valley.
It wasn’t long into the match that the Olympians had to go one gymnast down.
Reagan Mount fell on her head while trying to land during her vault. Mount was OK, but was scratched from the rest of the three events as a precaution.
Mount’s absence was missed as visiting Owen Valley put up solid scores to just get the edge over East 107.4 to 106.7.
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Mount is optimistic that she’ll be ready for the East Sectional on Feb. 28. Olympians coach Nancy Kirshman also expresses the same optimism.
Kirshman was pleased with how the team stepped up.
“There’s a lot of fune-tuning on some things here and there, but everyone didn’t do too bad tonight,” Kirshman said. “We still do have our plagues on beam. They did well on the floor. That was big for us having three 9’s on the floor.”
The Patriots claimed first place in three of the four events, but East’s Taylen Lane finished first in the all-around with a score of 36.4.
“I think everything was OK,” Lane said. “I could have been cleaner in some stuff, but other than that, it was pretty decent.”
Lane scored the lone individual event win for the Olympians on the bars with a score of 9.0. Makyna Mullins was runner-up with an 8.7.
On the vault, Lane was in second (9.15) and Elise LaSell finished in third (8.85). Lane placed second on the beam in 9.0.
On the floor, Owen Valley claimed first on the floor from Madison Teague (9.45), second place from Presley McPhee (9.35) and fourth from Settle (9.2). Lane finished in third (9.25) for East.
“Owen Valley is very technical on form,” Kirshman said. “They’re very correct on form. I think we matched them pretty well on vault and bars, but they scored extremely well on floor. Their two girls Settle and Teague are generally 9 scorers on the floor, and then another one came up with a 9.35, but it is what it is. We’ll take it, but we like for it to be a little more. It puts us in a good place for sectional.
Lane and the rest of the Olympians feel confident going into sectional. Even with losing Mount in three of the events, the 106.7 was their highest team score of the season.
“I think we’re doing pretty good,” Lane said. “We did really good tonight, especially not having Reagan since she got hurt. We had our all-time high for the season, so I think we’re doing pretty well. We’re starting to do more upgrades and adding them to our routines during practice.”
