John Raffel
Sports Scene
Nancy Gregory continues to take pride on how much progress her Howell gymnastics program makes over the years.
This season, Howell was fourth in team performance at the Division I finals on March 11 at Rockford. Howell’s score of 141.925 was below Rockford-Sparta (146.350), Forest Hills (145.100) and Farmington (144.000).
“The team gets better every year,” the Howell coach said. “They have some hard working girls and some of them are actually feeling like they’re getting to where they want to be. It’s exciting to see them so successful. They didn’t win state finals but they had a good season. They increased their team average for the season by two points from last year, which was very good. I thought they had a successful season. Winning regionals was nice. They also had individual finalists who were champions at the state meet.”
Kacy Wolfram, “is an awesome gymnast,” Gregory said. “She is a very hard working gal. She comes to practice with goals in mind of what she wants to do. She works hard to achieve what she wants to do.”
Wolfram was gold medalist on the vault (9.700). Alyssa Walker (9.475) was gold medalist on beam. Both were in Division 2. Kirsten Phifer was eighth (9.325) on beam in Division 1.
“It’s a combination of several things,” Gregory said “There’s natural talent. Above that, they need to set goals and be receptive to coaching ideas, and be willing to change when they need to do that, and be hard workers. Working hard to accomplish goals is a life skill. Hopefully it will carry over for them.”
Phifer is the only senior. The others are juniors.
“Already, they are setting goals for next year,” Gregory said. “The team had 13 members this year, six of which are incoming freshmen. One of those freshmen got All-American on the floor. Kacy and the rest of them got a vote each, Kacy on vault and Kirsten on beam. That’s a big thing for a high school gymnast. Kids coming up are learning from role models they see who are graduating and moving on.”