Niwot High gymnastics showcase at Senior Night

In any sport, a bye week can be a curse or a blessing. If momentum is running high, a bye can be a buzz killer. But on the other hand, a week without competition can be a blessing when long weeks of practice and competition have taken a physical and mental toll. For the Niwot High School gymnastics team, this week's bye may be the blessing Coach Marisa Purcell and her team need.

After hosting their final home meet of the season on Wednesday evening, Sept. 20, in an event that saw their top performer go down with an injury, and then participating in Saturday's day-long, 16-team Overland Invitational, the Cougars are ready for a team reset.

In spite of an injury-plagued meet, Niwot managed to pull out a victory in a triangular meet against Broomfield and Roosevelt, scoring 174.685 points, beating out second-place Broomfield's 172.65.

"We had an overall rough week," Purcell explained. "I am looking forward to being able to kind of mentally pull them back in a bit. I want them to be able to take a mental break and to take a deep breath and take next week to work on the things we need to work on so we can feel ready to finish our season starting the week after that."

It wasn't that the past week was a disaster, by any means, but it certainly didn't go as well as the Cougars might have hoped, starting with an injury to Maeve Flentie, their top all-around performer during the season. Flentie was warming up for her second event Wednesday evening when her left foot caught the end of the balance beam, visibly twisted, and sent her to the mat. For several minutes, the sophomore attempted to walk and stretch the pain away before she was forced to track down Purcell and let her coach know that the injury was going to be too much to overcome.

The good news was that Flentie was able to return to limited competition at the Overland Invitational, competing on the uneven bars. While it wasn't one of Flentie's best performances, seeing her star back in competition was encouraging for Purcell.

"It's not a horrible injury, but we hope to get her back into all her events after the bye week," Purcell said. "It was great to see her back out there. She wanted to be out there for her team."

With Flentie out for their last home event, the Cougars looked to their other leaders to carry the team. Sophomore Kylee Schlepp stepped up and won the all-around competition on the strength of second-place-finishes on the vault (8.95) and uneven bars (8.75). Teammate Heidi Herbert continued her consistent performances, taking second in the all-around competition. The senior placed third on the floor exercise (9.2) and fourth on the bars.

For Herbert and three other seniors, Wednesday's final home meet was their last opportunity to showcase their talents before their extremely supportive fans on Senior Night. The other seniors taking their final home curtain call were Ashland Crall, Nora Kirves and Sofia Keronen.

Saturday's Overland Invitational was Niwot's first opportunity to measure their strength at a major statewide event. With Flentie sidelined in the all-around competition, the Cougars were certainly at a disadvantage, but still were able to finish in fifth place. Only one team from Class 4A finished above them as Palmer Ridge High School won the event, edging out host 5A Overland for the title. The Bears from Palmer Ridge finished the 2022 4A state championship meet in second place, one spot ahead of Niwot.

"The Overland Invite is the biggest meet of the season," Purcell said. "It's always mid-season, so it does give the girls a glimpse of what it looks like to compete against those top teams. And being mid-season, you tend to sometimes see that the athletes do struggle a little bit. I think I saw that. They were struggling to find their groove.

"We had a meet during the week and then this big event. But that's every team and that's what I explained to them. Everybody across the state is doing this and it takes digging deep. It's a grind. It's what you need to persevere through and keep moving forward to do your best. So, it was a difficult week, but I think it will be good for our growth."

In the field of 16 teams and hundreds of individual gymnasts, the Cougars received Top 20 performances from junior Claire Vardas and sophomores Lilly O'Neill and Isabella Foster.

The Cougars return to competition on Wednesday, Oct 4., at Fort Morgan High School at 5:30 p.m.