Wawasee Gymnastics: Getting Down With The Sickness
ELKHART – Wawasee has had a sick feeling in its stomach. Elkhart Central, on the other hand, has a pep in its step.
The ailing Wawasee gymnastics team brought a little over half its corps to The Club in Elkhart for a Thursday tussle against Elkhart Central. The Blazers, on the other hand, felt just fine and went about its business in handling the Warriors 107.85-103.2 in a showdown between two of the top teams in the upcoming Lakeland Sectional.
Missing four athletes to various ailments – sick and injured offered by head coach Nika Prather – Wawasee had just five active Thursday. Likely a full deck wouldn’t have caught an Elkhart team that’s starting to streak upwards. The Blazers held the advantage in all four events in overall numbers, with only Wawasee’s Reagan Atwood breaking through in a top score.
Atwood put together another quality beam routine, scoring a 9.5 to win the event handily over Central’s top four, the next closest being Ashley Harmon at 9.2. Atwood would add a 9.3 on floor, but only take fourth as Central’s trio of Abi Downs (9.5), Kiara Stabler (9.4) and Analena VanderZwagg (9.35) put together more sound performances.
Atwood’s 8.75 trailed VanderZwaag’s 8.95 on vault and an 8.55 on bars was just fourth, but gave Atwood a season-high 36.1 all-around score in a silver lining for Wawasee.
“I like seeing Elkhart Central this late in the season,” Prather said. “It puts a little fire under our butts and lets them know we need to get ready for sectionals. This is what you are chasing. We don’t have that much time and look what they are doing. I expect us to perform better, but this is not what we are capable of doing, even with some of the scores we got.”
Central looked every bit the part of favorite for the Lakeland Sectional in two weeks. Skiler Reveal’s 8.85 on bars gave Central a third different competitor to win an event, and Stabler was second on both the bars at 8.75 and floor.
VanderZwaag was second in all-around at 35.95, Reveal third at 35.55 and Stabler fourth 35.4 in show of force. The mix didn’t even include Downs, Central’s usual ace, who only competed in bars and floor to rest up per Central coach Kathy Krauter.
“We have not even started to peak yet, not even close,” Krauter said. “Abi is strong in all four events, Analena is strong in every single event, she does not have a weak event.
“We were dealing with sickness a couple weeks ago, but the kids are feeling much better. It’s getting close to the end of the season, and we just want to make sure we are completely healthy and ready for the sectional. We knew unless we completely screwed it up, we could beat Wawasee. We held a couple girls back tonight, kept Abi out of a couple events, got some kids a break. We felt good coming in with what we wanted to do.”
Central, which won the Lakeland Invite last weekend with 109 points, also posted a 109 at Angola Tuesday night, showing a consistency that the sectional field, including Wawasee, is trying to attain. Prather noted the intangible issues like the illness and injuries are hitting all at the same time, but didn’t affect Thursday performances that were less than sparkling. Wawasee had just one other score in the top five in any event, which was Jada Parzygnot’s 8.5 on vault, which was fifth place.
“We have to have three really good scores in everything if we want to compete, bottom line,” Prather said. “We can’t keep falling off the beam, making silly mistakes where we don’t make them during warmups. Some of the skills, if they aren’t going to hit them, we have to take those out and save some face, the points matter. Falling on beam or stumbling on floor, I’d rather just avoid that and have a clean routine.”
Westview had three competitors going during the meet, as well as New Prairie’s Allie Palmer. Westview scored an 80.85 and Palmer racked up a 34.50, her best scores were an 8.65 on bars for third and tying Atwood for fourth on floor.
Wawasee will compete next Thursday at home against Huntington North.