By DAVID WILFONG
CNHI
HEATH — It was the first time for Rockwall-Heath High School to host the district gymnastics competition.
The result was a third place finish for the Hawks in both the boys and girls competition. Rockwall took the silver in both categories.
“It was kind of a rough meet,” said RHS coach Cameron Sweny of his team’s performance. “We had three events in which we did well and three events that were pretty rough. The three events that did well in we did really well, though. We’ll have it together for state.”
On the Heath side, Omar Loya was pleased with his team’s bronze performance.
“I told them to go out there and just do the best you can,” Loya said. With no seniors on the team and only one junior, Loya says that he has a young team with plenty of opportunity to build up consistency for future competition.
“My top guy is only a freshman, that’s how young this team is,” he added.
The district competition began on Tuesday and concluded Wednesday with boys competition being held during the day and the girls competition held in the evenings.
The first day consisted of compulsory routines with optionals being held on Wednesday
Garland Lakeview maintained a steady lead throughout the competition, taking the district title with a two-day total of 330.10.
Sweny said that Lakeview is definitely one of the teams in the running for the state title as well.
Rockwall scored a team composite of 321.350, while Heath scored 269.65.
In the all-around competition, Lakeview’s Johann Handszer took the win with a two-day total of 58.65.
Rockwall clocked ina string of all-arounders taking third through fifth place with Robert Johnson, Daniel Strong and Zach Bennett. The Rockwall trio posted scores of 54.60, 55.20 and 54.65 respectively.
Trevor Newell was the highest placing all-arounder for Heath at sixth place with a score of 53.25.
The Jackets placed four athletes in the top six spots on the floor exercise with Bradley Meyer, Jude McCarthy, Strong and Bennett placing third through sixth.
Zach Bennett placed third in the pommel horse while Craig Brannon took fifth. Teammates Strong and Johnson tied for sixth with 16.00.
Rockwall’s strongest event was the rings where Johnson won the event with a score of 19.10. Brannon took second and Strong took fourth. Rockwall actually bested Lakeview in that event 56.30 to 55.10.
Strong, Meyer and McCarthy took third through fifth in the vault. Meyer, Brannon and Bennett took third through fifth in the parallel bars.
On high bar, Meyer and Johnson too third and fourth respectively while Brannon came in sixth.
In the girls competition, South Garland edged the Lady Jackets by 1.15 points over the two-day competition to take the district title with a score of 227.80. Rockwall scored 226.65 for second and Heath came in third at 224.150.
SG’s Margaret Mayfield too the individual all-around competition with a composite score of 77.70.
Heath’s Jade Bowerman topped RISD athletes with a second place finish and a score of 76.350. Rockwall’s Kailea Coles took fourth with 75.25 and Heath’s Ashlee Reese followed in sixth with 72.550. Megan Hasenyager, also of Heath placed seventh with 69.450.
The Lady Hawks went gold and silver in the uneven bars as Bowerman took the win with 19.35 and Lori Williamson placed second with 19.25. Rockwall’s Jenna Jeffrey and Kara Miller followed in fourth and fifth place.
Lindsay Loy and Coles took second and third in the vault, followed by Bowerman in fourth. On the balance beam Bowerman placed fourth for Heath while Lady Jackets Coles, Emily Pettett and Loy took third, sixth and seventh respectively. The final three spots in the top 10 were filled out by Heath’s Reese, Lauren Statham and Naje’ Watkins.
In the floor exercise, Bowerman took second. Rockwall athletes Loy, Miller, Jeffrey, Coles and Pettett took third, fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth. Reese took ninth in the event for Rockwall-Heath.
