Thornton – Waking up Saturday morning, Anna Simmons’ nerves were playing tricks on the Mountain Range freshman’s usually cat-like balance.
After an unsteady start, however, Simmons regained her equilibrium and put together some masterful routines on the floor and the vault to win the Class 4A all-around gymnastics title at Thornton High School, edging reigning champion Tera Sisson of Pueblo Central.
“I was a shaky this morning,” Simmons said. “I was a little wobbly on the (balance) beam at first, but I got through it and felt better after that.”
Simmons became the first state champion at Mountain Range, which opened its doors this fall. She recorded the highest scores of the competition in three of the four events – vault, uneven bars and floor. Sisson had the best score on the beam.
“I had my doubts about winning a state title after I saw a few people go, but I came out on top,” Simmons said.
In the team competition, Pueblo Central had its collective fingers crossed for more than 20 minutes as judges tabulated the final scores. When they were announced, the Wildcats, a combined team of five Pueblo schools, knocked off four-time defending champion Sterling by the thinnest of margins – four-tenths of a point.
“We heard rumors at one point that we were ahead of Sterling by 1.3 points, which was enough for them to catch us but enough to keep us going,” said Pueblo Central’s Jennifer Rockwell, who finished third behind her teammate in the all-around. “That wait for the scores was long. I thought I was going to throw up.”
Evergreen rounded out the top three while the all-freshmen Mountain Range team finished fourth and Summit fifth.
Though Simmons was especially impressive on the floor, where her power is unmatched, it was her vault that really dropped jaws. She cartwheeled into the vault, soared into a back flip and stuck the landing for a score of 9.700.
Sisson’s best performance came on the beam, but overcoming a recent knee injury also was quite a feat. Two weeks ago she hyperextended her knee, and a MRI showed severe bruising to the bone.
“I hadn’t been sticking my front pass in practice because I hurt my knee, but once I did it I was really excited,” Sisson said. “We knew it’s always been close between us (and Sterling), but we did really great this year.”
Allison Robinette of Evergreen placed fourth in the all-around, and Lyndsey Meier of Sterling, the defending champion on the balance beam, took fifth.
The evening session belonged to Simmons as well. The freshman capped a brilliant day winning three of the four individual apparatus, including the beam (9.525), bars (9.375) and vault (9.725). Sisson won the floor with a score of 9.550.
Four events, four different winners in the Class 5A individual apparatus. One night after winning her second consecutive all-around champion Hannah Bower of Loveland won the floor exercise (9.75). Michele Tharp of Fort Collins won the beam (9.65), Pine Creek’s Kristin Milardo the bars (9.8) and Green Mountain’s Kelly Stone won the vault (9.7).
