Rylee Damewood and Elkhart Central look to soar at Saturday’s Huntington North Gymnastics Regional. (Photos by Mike Deak)

HUNTINGTON – It’s now or never for the remaining area gymnasts as the IHSAA gymnastics state tournament rolls into phase two this weekend.

Elkhart Central’s team and a pair of Wawasee athletes will compete at this Saturday’s Huntington North Regional trying to land within the perimeters of qualification for the IHSAA Gymnastics State Finals on March 9 in Noblesville.

Central emerged as the third team from the Wawasee Sectional last weekend, scraping together a 104.625 to outpoint Wawasee and grab the third spot and another week of work. Central, which had won the past four Wawasee sectional titles, is trying to get back to the state finals as a team for the first time since 2016.

Wawasee’s Jada Parzygnot hopes to catch fire this weekend on floor.

Leading the way for the Blazers were the trio of Ellie Dobson, Karli Reveal and Rylee Damewood. Dobson scored a pair of top-sixes on vault and bars, Reveal eighth on beam and Damewood came through with a championship on floor, helping Central score big points in its advancement.

Wawasee, on the outside looking in on the team scope, still had its two seniors qualify for another week of work. Jada Parzygnot will appear on floor, scoring a fourth-place mark of 9.325 last Saturday. An alternate at state in the event as a sophomore, Parzygnot has the routine to land a top-six, but was two-tenths behind Damewood and DeKalb’s Shilih Miller and three-and-a-half behind Dwenger’s Rachel Landstoffer, who scored 9.675 to win the Fort Wayne Concordia Sectional, which is the other half of the Huntington make-up.

Alyssa Minnix is making a regional appearance on bars, scoring 8.55 to tie Dobson for sixth to slide through. Minnix is making her fourth regional in the event, the first three with Wawasee’s team, but has not managed to qualify for state in the previous work.

“You can’t spend all your time going over and over and over,” explained Wawasee head coach Nika Prather on the difference in prepping for one event rather than a full compliment. “You can only do so many bars routines and your hands just fall off. You can’t do that over and over. You can work on body positions and different things, the concepts and the circling stuff, you have to be smart about. The same on floor, Jada is nursing an ankle and a toe. The tumbling is where she needs to improve before she gets to regionals. Again, with some of the ailments that she has, there is only so much she can do. We’ll come in and do a little bit of stuff each day, but not push it as hard as you do when you have to try to get all four events in every practice.

“I’m just hoping they go and do well.”

Assuming the subjective judging from two sets of judges at Wawasee and Fort Wayne Concordia, Angola’s 109.4 is the highest team score of the six teams coming in, followed by Homestead (109.25), Fort Wayne Carroll (108.325), DeKalb (108.225), Fort Wayne Dwenger (106.95) and Elkhart Central (104.625). The gap between the teams is one of the smallest in the past decade, setting up what should be a great team race for the top three spots for the state qualification.

Wawasee senior Alyssa Minnix will make her fourth regional appearance on bars this weekend.

Angola has a quartet of stars, led by Ashtyn Evans, who won the all-around at 37.275, Emma Schoenherr, the vault champ at 9.35, as well as Gracie Flatt and Emily Bracey, who also had top-six showings.

DeKalb brings its power duo in Miller, the floor champ, and Sarah Boyd, who was third in all-around at 36.050.

Plymouth also sends an individual in Kyla Heckaman, who will perform in all-around after scoring 34.9 to place sixth, but was the beam champion at 9.225.

Homestead will be led by Catherine Milne and Yana Weir. Milne was the Fort Wayne Concordia all-around champ at 37.475 and Weir was the beam champ at 9.425 and was third in all-around at 36.425. The depth of the Concordia tournament had five different individuals standing on the No. 1 podium, with Erica Xayarth of Fort Wayne Wayne on vault (9.6), Reagan Twomey of Fort Wayne Concordia on bars (9.225) as well as Weir, Landstoffer and Milne.

Carroll didn’t have a champion, but has a power duo of Ella Smith, who was second in all-around, and Ashelynn Steinke, and Emma Doyle is a capable gymnast to watch from Dwenger.

Action at Huntington North High School begins at noon The top three teams and top six athletes in the five scored categories qualify for the IHSAA Gymnastics State Finals.