STRETCHING TOWARDS STATE

STRETCHING

TOWARDS STATE

KAYA SHAFER

Future of Kansas high school gymnastics in

Rumors have been circulating that Kansas high schools would lose girls gymnastics next year and the response from the Kansas State High School Activities Association gymnastics administrator Cheryl Gleason doesn’t do a lot to disspell them.

“The KSHSAA continues to offer the program for it’s membership and they continue to participate,” Gleason said. “Should a time come when schools cease to participate, then the KSHSAA would take a look at the program’s future.”

Gleason inferred that the reason for all the rumors is due to school funding problems the state faced over the summer.

“Following past precedence with the boys gymnastics program (which ended in 1990), should the number of schools drop below eight, the KSHSAA will discontinue the state meet,” Gleason said. However, starting next year, Olathe and Shawnee Mission high schools will no longer have teams which would mean, according to Gleason, KSHSAA will not be hosting a state gymnastics championship in 2017-18. There are currently 13 high school gymnastics teams in Kansas. With the loss of the Olathe and Shawnee Mission programs only four would remain: Newton, Emporia, LHS and Free State.

The Free State coach Brooke Kissinger hopes to organize a non-school affiliated team for the upcoming years to make up for the loss of KSHSAA’s involvement.

This news comes in a year Free State has the biggest gymnastics team in school history. Despite the news the girls are coming together to train and win State. The team trains with LHS in mornings and afternoons.

Though training with the rival school could seem like a problem, freshman Monica Kimmel feels that she is still getting focused attention from her coach. Practice can be so consuming that Kimmel can lose track of who is on the Free State team and who is on the LHS team. After training and bonding with them, the biggest challenge for Free State is often facing LHS at competitions.

The benefit of having such a large number of girls on the Free State team is prevalent at meets, where the scoring system is based off team performance rather than individual. The larger the size of the team, the better the chances of winning 11

overall.

Senior Landon Prideaux has been involved in gymnastics since she was only two years old. In her third and last year of high school gymnastics, she has taken on a leadership role similar to that of a coach.

“Being a senior, I’m the leader of the team. It’s my responsibility to teach these girls how high school gymnastics works, because it’s a lot different

than club [gymnastics],” Prideaux said. Club and high school are indeed very different from each other. From complex scoring to different material floor mats, gymnasts face drastic changes when transitioning from club to high school teams.

“Usually in club you start at a perfect ten [score] and get deducted down from that, but in high school, you start at whatever the start value for your skill is,” Prideaux said. “If you have really basic skills your start level would be down to a seven. Even if you have really perfect skills, you won’t get as many points as a girl who fell at a really advanced skill.”

No matter the future of the team, the girls are relishing in their final year of the competing. For Prideaux, that means not taking any moment for granted. When she started going to Lawrence Gymnastics Academy, she knew how she felt immediately.

“I just knew that I fell in love with it. In the gym there was the little girls’ side and then there was the big girls’ side,” Prideaux said. “I actually remember being in the little classes and seeing [the big girls]. I went over and tried to practice with them instead.”

With senior year stress and coaching beginner gymnasts, Prideaux has many things to anticipate in the remaining school year.

“Living in the moment of the last of something,” she said. “I think that will be what I look forward to.”

“Living in the moment of the last of something, I think that will be what I look forward to.” 10 11 12

- SENIOR LANDON PRIDEAUX

Doing the bars, sophomore Madoka Ueno prepares to land. Free State practiced with LHS in a city wide gymnastics program. “It’s good that we can see and learn from other people”, Ueno said. Opposite page:

In the air, freshman Liliana King-Wilson does the bars event. King-Wilson had some troubles with shin splints, but thought the season went well. “I think that we are a strong team, we just need to work hard during practices and focus during meets”, King-Wilson said. Left: