The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

• Headlines
• Sports
• Forums
• Weather
• Classifieds

• Help
• Log in
• Home

• E-mail story
• Post a comment
• iPod friendly version

The toughest judge at Tuesday night’s Emporia High gymnastics triangular wasn’t any of the ones filling out the scorecards.

It was Emporia High senior Tarra Nichols.

Despite picking up first-place event finishes on the bars and on the floor and finishing tied for fourth in the All-Around competition, Nichols was dissatisfied with her performance, particularly in the two events she won.

“Looking from the outside in, people will think I did great,” Nichols said. “But I know I could have done a lot better. I got credit for all my skills, but there were errors in there that I know I can fix. They’re just really uncharacteristic errors from me.”

Nichols singled out two skills on the floor as some of the culprits for her harsh critique of her night.

“My tumbling series was short, and my pirouettes, I didn’t make it the whole way,” she said. “I need to get in the gym and work on those things. I know I’m better than that.”

Even so, Nichols still managed to win the bars with a score of 8.55 — far outdistancing herself from the runner up, Newton’s Kylie Jantz (8.15) — and took the gold on the floor with a score of 8.85.

That propelled her to a fourth-place finish in the All-Around competition with a 32.40, tying her with Newton’s Jamie Hansen. Jantz won the All-Around title with a score of 34.20.

Another EHS senior, Hayley Fry, came up with a consistent performance on Senior Night that was good enough to earn her a third-place finish in the All-Around.

Fry placed in all four events, taking third in the vault (8.5), fourth in both the bars (7.5) and the floor (8.6) and fifth on the beam (8.55).

Senior Jamie Hollern also placed in two events, turning in a fifth-place showing on the floor (8.15) and a sixth-place outing on the beam (7.8).

“My seniors did a great job, and this night was all about them,” EHS coach Barbara Clark said. “They did well.”

Emporia finished with its highest team score of the season, ending with a 93.95, which was good enough to place second. Newton won the triangular with a 100.05 while Hutchinson was third with an 83.25.

“I saw a lot of good things,” Clark said. “We need a little bit more work on vault, and on the beam, we had a few falls. But you know, that happens. The girls have been working so hard, and a lot of things looked great, and their scores showed it too.”