Curry shines as Niwot finishes takes third at state gymnastics

On April 24, the fast-paced 2021 gymnastics season wrapped up at the Class 4A state championships with a familiar name on top of the all-around standings. With top-five scores in each rotation, Niwot gymnast Mia Curry successfully defended her state all-around title, and led her team to third place overall in the process. Afterwards, Cougar head coach Marisa Purcell called the junior's performance "phenomenal," especially after such a challenging year.

"She did a great job," Purcell said. "She did everything she could do for her team, and it paid off for her in the end."

Curry took first overall in balance beam, with a score of 9.325, second in bars (9.250), third in vault (9.150), and fifth in floor (9.43), for a cumulative score of 36.9, just a few tenths-of-a-point ahead of competitors from Elizabeth and Standley Lake. Like Purcell, Curry said the 2021 season had been challenging and stressful, but with support from her teammates, she was able to use that pressure to her advantage during the state competition.

"It was definitely a much harder fight this year, than it was last year," Curry said of earning the title for a second time. "It might have paid off to be a little bit nervous because then you're more focused. You're more on edge, so you're paying attention to what you're doing."

With her top-five scores in all four rotations, Curry qualified for individual event finals held on the second day of competition. She again repeated her winning performance in the beam, and also captured the state title in uneven bars.

Curry's careful performance seemed to set the tone for the rest of the Niwot gymnasts, who had their "best meet of the year," at the championships, according to Purcell. Ironically, the balance beam ended up being the Cougars' strongest event of the state competition, after a very shaky performance at the regional qualifying meet the week before.

Four Cougars finished in the top 11 at state-Curry in first, junior Olivia Sroka (8.725) in ninth, sophomore Madison Sloane (8.7) in 10th, and sophomore Ava Silverstein 11th (8.65)-but, more importantly, Niwot escaped the rotation with no falls, which was not just the biggest surprise of the weekend for Purcell, but also a considerable relief.

"Watching them do that and go for it was so exciting," she said. "We've been working and just trying to go for that, so trying to get them to understand how much confidence that that builds for you, no matter where the beam falls in line up."

Unfortunately, one of Niwot's gymnasts-freshman Grayce Gutierrez-was unable to compete due to a quarantine, leaving Purcell without one of her strongest competitors on vault and floor. That likely kept the Cougars from claiming the state runner-up trophy, which they fell short of by less than half of a point.

But even if the team didn't get to bring home any hardware in 2021, Purcell was thrilled with the way her gymnasts came together during the biggest competition of the year.

"These girls, they're capable of so much," she said. "They just had so much against them. And so, I'm just proud of where they came in... Our goal was to just make it to state as a team, and we got here. So we told them that we do the best that we can do, and leave it all out there. And they did that. So I couldn't ask for anything more."