With one event remaining in Friday night’s Columbus East Sectional, the Columbus North gymnasts found themselves clinging to a precarious 80.1 to 80.075 lead over Bloomington North.
But fortunately for the Bull Dogs, they were able to finish with their best event, the floor exercise. No. 8 Columbus North put up a 27.775 on the floor to pull away to outscore the No. 15 Cougars 107.875 to 105.9 for its third consecutive sectional title and eighth in the past nine years.
“We really try not to watch the other teams for the sake of keeping our team focused on what we need to do,” first-year Columbus North coach Betsy Warble said. “So we try to always shift that mindset to, ‘This is what we need to do. This is your job,’ and when we take out what the other competitors are doing, we can really focus on our routines.”
Still, word of the closeness of the battle for the team title reached junior Madi Edwards.
“We had to actually try to pull it out in the last part, and that was a test, but we did it,” Edwards. “There definitely were nerves, but we pulled through.”
Teammate and classmate Emily Moore won the floor with a 9.7 and finished second in the all-around competition with a 38.15. Moore also took second on the vault (9.45), bars (9.5) and beam (9.5).
“I feel like I could have done better,” Moore said. “I think it was pretty decent, though. We still have time to get better for state.”
Edwards finished third on the floor with a 9.475 and fourth in the all-around with a 35.1. Lindsey Mullis was fourth in the beam with an 8.95.
“I think we did well as a team,” Edwards said. “I think we definitely haven’t reached our potential yet, but we’ll get there in the next couple of weeks. It will be really interesting to see.”
The Bull Dogs’ team score was a couple points off their season-high, but was close to what they had scored the previous couple meets.
“We’ve been putting in a few new skills, and I think tonight, working those new skills, we still need a little refinement and work in the gym this week,” Warble said. “It’s good to get through this one, and I think the girls self-reflectively know what they need to work on in the next five days, and we’ll hopefully come back in with some improvements in places that we need to improve.”
Martinsville claimed the third and final qualifying spot to Saturday’s East Regional with a 104.45. The host Olympians finished seventh with a 101.425.
East did qualify its two seniors to regional as individuals. Taylen Lane, who missed the entire regular season after sustaining a concussion in late December, tied for fifth on the beam with an 8.8.
“I’m really excited, especially coming back from an injury,” Lane said. “This is basically my first week back, but I’m really excited, especially because this is my fourth year going to regional.”
Elise LaSell, who sprained an ankle in a mock meet last week, tied for fifth on the floor with a 9.3.
“I’m also coming back from an injury last week, and I had to get through a lot of mental blocks,” LaSell said. “I’m really excited that I was able to go to regional and get to do it with Taylen. It’s our senior year, and I’m glad we’re both going to get to be in regional together.”
Despite starting out with only a 23.25 on the bars, the Olympians came back to post their best team score of the season.
“We were the the first team up (on bars), so that’s always a tough spot to be in, but the girls did really well on bars, nonetheless,” East co-coach Melissa Dishinger said.
“I think they did well on bars,” co-coach Katie Menefee added. “Scoring overall on bars was a little lower than what we had expected. But our girls kept it together after bars and were able to collect themselves and be more competitive on the other events.”
