Prairie High School’s gymnastics team makes it to the State Championship at Sammamish High School for the second year in a row as a team. The girls won districts to advance and competed on February 23rd and 24th 2023 at state.

The girls had a goal of winning districts and making it to state and they did just that. To start off the season the girls constantly improved their all-around scores as a team and added new skills to continue preparing for state. These skills led to a sweep at districts getting first in all events. The team also got an all-around score of 168.9 which ended up being their highest score of the season and the highest score out of everyone at districts as well.

“We had a really good season, and improved a lot from last year,” says senior Gretchen Lane. Gretchen played a huge role in the great season Prairie gymnastics had. She was top 3 all around in all of their league matchups. She came into the season with personal goals for herself that led her to this success. “My goals personally were just to place at state which I did,” she says. Gretchen placed 5th on vault and 7th on bars and was the only individual from the team to compete individually. I think you could say she reached her goals and much more. In an interview, Gretchen said she hopes to leave her team with “good leadership skills and a fun environment.”

This team was bonded very well and inclusive of each other. “Everyone was pretty close,” says Junior Madelyn Lewis. Being a younger participant on a team can be scary sometimes but not if you have a good team, and Prairie Gymnastics was a well-bonded team which led them to success. The upperclassmen played a big role in the success of this team and will be missed by the underclassmen immensely next year. “They bring a lot of energy to practice, so I feel like we will lose that,” says Madelyn. The team will have to persevere through the loss of those people though and step up for next season in order to return to state. “For next year, our hope is to continue to build our program. We encourage anyone who is interested to join our team, regardless of having done gymnastics before!” says head coach Dakota Tast.