Mead gymnasts lower state expectations

The Mead gymnastics team, which captured a State 4A championship in 2012, heads to state expecting to challenge for a trophy.

Another state title? Not yet, says Panthers coach Laurie Chadwick.

She says her team – which will take one senior, six juniors, one sophomore and one freshman – is a year away.

Chadwick tabs Woodinville as the favorite.

“Woodinville has been scoring between 175 to 180 all year,” Chadwick said. “We don’t have the difficulty level to score that high. If we have a great meet we can score about 173. Woodinville would have to tank it. It’s not a reasonable expectation.”

The state meets begin Friday at the Tacoma Dome. The 3A/2A/1A begins at 9:15 a.m. and the 4A is in the evening at 6:30. Team and all-around titles are decided on Friday while individual titles are Saturday, beginning at 11:15 a.m.

Mead captured the West Central District/Greater Spokane League regional title last Saturday with 170.025 points, just ahead of Puyallup (169.85).

Junior Jenna Schlosser, a former Level 9 club gymnast, led Mead. She scored 37.575 points to capture the all-around title.

“I knew that we needed to be really clean going into the (regional) meet because our difficulty level wasn’t really going to improve,” Chadwick said. “They worked really hard getting things cleaned up. They performed well. We had a few mistakes but not a bunch of major mistakes.”

Mead struggled through the season with injuries but appears to be peaking at the right time.

Chadwick said she’d be happy to finish runner-up.

“That would be a reasonable expectation,” she said.