5A gymnastics: Broomfield Eagles claim victory for second straight team title

THORNTON – Strange as it sounds for a defending state champion, winning the team title again was not the goal for the 2022 Broomfield gymnastics team.

That conservative approach, apparently, didn’t rule out the possibility of it actually happening.

On Thursday night at Thornton High School, the Broomfield Eagles scored a combined 183.500 to claim their second straight title and leave for a snowy drive back up north with a trophy to put next to the three team title they already have. For a group that graduated the level of talent as Broomfield did at the end of last school year, would have seemed like a more than welcome surprise to this year’s squad prior to the season.

“It’s crazy. We lost a lot of people last year so going into the season, our goal was not to win,” Eagles junior Mia Ritchie said. “Our goal was just to be the best team that we could be and really build the community. We ended up winning and that was a great plus. It feels amazing and I’m so proud of everyone.”

Ritchie, who finished fourth in the all-around competition, said the Eagles began to believe they could win it all when the first scored 180 points nearly a month ago. On Thursday, they exceeded their prior performances and performed their best as a group to date when the pressure was the highest to surpass runner-up Mountain Range’s score of 180.950.

Broomfield’s best event of the night was the vault, in which the Eagles scored a dominant 47.275.

“Bars was good for us and floor is one of our better events, but they were nervous,” Broomfield head coach Mark Bogoger said. “Just little mistakes, not enough to take us out of it. Just nerves. We came in the second half and they blew up vault. They haven’t done that vault all season, even in practice. It was the best vault I’ve seen them do and they did it today when it mattered the most. They went probably two points up on everyone else on vault.”

Thornton was third in the team competition with a score of 179.225, and Overland and Arvada West tied for fourth at 178.975.

Lakewood’s Lauren Burt won the individual all-around title with a combined score of 38.325. She placed first in the preliminary vault and bars with scores of 9.950 and 9.800, respectively.

The finals of the 5A individual competition will be held on Saturday at Thornton High School.