THORNTON — The 2016 CHSAA gymnastics season concluded Saturday at Thornton High School with Pomona (5A) and Green Mountain (4A) being crowned as team champions in addition to an array of impressive individual performances overall.
Pomona sophomore Brooke Weins won the 5A all-around Thursday with a total score of 38.925, enough to defeat Lakewood’s Amber Boll (38.275) and teammates Kaylie Berens (37.975) and Kelsey Boychuk (37.775). Boychuk was the two-time defending 5A all-around champion.
“Brooke has been healthy all year and she’s just a confident, beautiful gymnast, and it showed this weekend.” Pomona coach Tracey Boychuk said. “And as a team, it was a little tougher with the injuries we had, so coming into state was a different feel this year than when we won the title last year — but the girls overcame that lack of meet experience and performed really well.”
And on Friday, Standley Lake junior Rachel Cody successfully defended her all-around title with a 37.000, while Green Mountain’s Camille Dipaola (36.875), Emily Graham (36.575), Mya Sinha (36.525), and Hayley Upson (36.450) finished second through fifth to give the Rams their fourth team state championship after finishing 10th in 5A last season.
“I knew there were a bunch of other girls who were really close to me all season, but I have this weird thing where I usually do a lot better at state than I do during the regular season,” Rachel Cody said. “I’m definitely an adrenaline gymnast in that sense, because I have a tendency to pull it out when I absolutely need to.”
The 4A team championship was especially sweet for Green Mountain head coach Sandi Patterson and her husband/assistant coach Dan Patterson, as the duo is retiring from coaching this year. This year’s title gives the Pattersons a trio of state championships in their two decades of coaching for the Rams, and a concluding career memory the coaches aren’t soon to forget.
“It’s pretty much a fairy tale ending for us,” Sandi Patterson said. “Our success this weekend resulted from a number of things — we worked on consistency, we worked on confidence, and this team made a goal at the end of last year to be state champions this year. They dedicated themselves to it all offseason and all summer, and it paid off in a big way.”
Other noteworthy performances came from Overland and Broomfield, which finished second and third in the 5A team competition, as well as Niwot and Elizabeth, which finished second and third in the 4A competition.
In individual events on Saturday, 5A event champions were Lakewood’s Amber Boll (bars), Pomona’s Brooke Weins (beam), Overland’s Christine Yee (floor) and Pomona’s Kelsey Boychuk (vault), while 4A event champions were Green Mountain’s Emily Graham (bars), Rampart’s Cierra Babb (beam), Green Mountain’s Camille Dipaola (floor) and Niwot’s Alexis Carroll (vault).
And considering the vast amount of underclass talent on display this weekend, one can expect the usual suspects to be back in action next fall as the bar of Colorado high school gymnastics continues to be raised.
“Talent-wise, the sport is getting stronger every year at the 4A and 5A levels,” Patterson said. “It’s definitely moving in the right direction, because coaches and girls across all schools are constantly working together. It’s not like in football where everyone is a rival — we’re all friends here and we’re all cheering each other on, and I feel like that makes this sport unique and keeps the sport on an upward trajectory.”
