Gymnastics: Niwot beats Broomfield in home triangular

NIWOT — Even when she’s just come back from injury, Niwot sophomore Kylee Schlepp shines above the rest.

In her own home gym on Wednesday night, during a triangular that also welcomed Broomfield and Roosevelt, Schlepp rose to the top of the competition when she won the all-around with a score of 35.05.

Her foot, which had been nagging her for a couple of weeks after a bad landing, didn’t seem to faze her at all.

“It kind of just threw me off a little bit,” Schlepp said. “I was just out of my groove for a while there in the beginning of the season, partly because of that and partly just coming off from a long break. I did track in the spring, so I came off like a six, seven-month break, which I’m just not used to.”

She noted that while some meets can throw her curveballs, she always has a consistent vault routine to fall back on. Throughout the second half of the season, she hopes to work back up to a Yurchenko tuck on vault while also incorporating a few upgrades on bars.

Schlepp, however, was far from the only star on Niwot’s roster Wednesday. While she led the Cougars to the top team finish with a 174.685 score, beating out second-place Broomfield’s 172.65, she didn’t win a single event. That honor belonged to Lilly O’Neill, who scored an 8.8 on bars, the event that seemed to trip up every team the most.

Head coach Marisa Purcell has reveled in the strides her ladies have taken, even amid adversity. Case in point: Niwot’s leader, Maeve Flentie, hurt her ankle in warmups and missed the entire meet.

“The amount of girls that are stepping up is what really is impressing me,” Purcell said. “We talk about depth, we talk about (how) injuries happen — and we’ve had some injuries — and they’re seeing their score every week kind of just go up little by little, even with people being out.”

Broomfield senior Mia Ritchie joined O’Neill at the top of the individual events, winning both floor (9.4) and beam (9.5). She led a young group of Eagles who last year secured the Class 5A state crown for the second straight season.

For her, it all came down to confident muscle memory.

“I’d say I’m most proud of the beam routine that I did,” Ritchie said. “I really did the same routine that I’ve done since like sophomore year, but I connected my series better than I have all season and I didn’t wobble on my jumps.”

She believed that Wednesday’s triangular marked a turning point in the season, after which the girls would fine-tune the skills they’ve incorporated up to that point without adding more. Her win on the beam provided just a small sample of the improvements the team as a whole made in the event.

The Eagles have already seen all six ladies stick their beam routines once this year, something that didn’t happen before state last season.

“We definitely lost some key pieces, but I think our returning juniors coming in to be seniors this year, they definitely took initiative,” head coach Abby Anderson said. “They’re just able to take the forefront and be the leaders of the team and create such a positive environment in the gym that it makes everybody else want to work hard and fill those gaps where we’re missing them from last year.”

Anderson, who stepped up into the lead role just before the season started, believes Broomfield’s biggest competition at state this year will come from Mountain Range, who beat it at the Loveland Invite.

“I think Mountain Range definitely has the depth,” she said. “They’ve got the skills, and we’ve already seen it at the beginning of the season, that they have put in just as much work as we have. But again, we’re going to fight until the bitter end.”

More than just a competition

Through all the organized chaos that a gymnastics meet typically brings, one competitor made the entire gym come to a standstill.

Sofia Keronen, a Niwot senior with Down syndrome, drew the attention and loud cheers of everyone in the gym — even her fellow gymnasts in other stations — as she showed off her skills in various events.

The sport doesn’t have its own unified subset, so the Cougars incorporated her into their weekly routines, further exemplifying the team-first atmosphere that defines high school gymnastics.

“She was at Skyline last year,” Purcell explained. “She does gymnastics, so she came to Niwot for her senior year. We all kind of got together to see if we can make something work for her to be here. She comes once a week and the girls have really enjoyed her and she’s really enjoying being with the team and showing off her routines and the things that she can do. We’re loving it.”