Kelly Hill
Sports Scene
GRAND RAPIDS – Grand Ledge gymnastics coach Duane Haring was speechless at Kenowa Hills High School March 9 after his Comets won a record fifth-straight state championship.
Haring was not speechless however, prior to the Comets’ final rotation on the uneven parallel bars.
Prior to their final event, Haring gave a brief speech, in terms that the team could understand, and provided the Comets with the motivation they needed to put together their best bars performance of the season.
And they needed it. Grand Ledge finished with a team total 149.40 points, while Canton, runner-up for the second consecutive year, finished with a mark of 148.575.
“I don’t know what to say,” Haring said as the Comets lifted the state championship trophy for the fifth year in a row. “We have not swung a good bars routine all year. This was the first one. I can’t believe it.”
The Comets, who began the state meet on the apparatus upon which no one wants to begin, the balance beam, held a very slim lead over Canton through three events. “I was very angry because we can vault; I think we’re the best vaulting team in the state, and we didn’t do it,” Haring said. “They understood what I had to say. They understood loud and clear. They were awake for the bars.”
Grand Ledge posted the highest team scores on every apparatus except the vault Friday. The Comets posted a vault total of 37.050 points while Canton scored 37.250. But the team came back and “lit up the bars,” Haring said. “Instead of crumbling like a cookie, they got tough. They got tough.”
Senior Christine Wilson is the only Comet who has been a member of four state-championship gymnastics teams. “It gets better and better every year,” she said. “My score has improved every year, so I know that I’m contributing to the team.”
Wilson grinned slyly when discussing Haring’s speech before the bars. “He told us to dig deep. We had a couple of hiccups on vault and that should be our strongest event, but we’re human and those things happen,” she said. “He told us that we needed to find the motivation to swing a good bars routine. We knew we could do it.
“This gets better every year, it really does. It’s more pressure every year, but it’s more fun, too. It’s so worth it.”