For the Portage High School gymnastics team, a wild ride had the happiest of endings on Saturday as the Indians achieved the ultimate goal by securing the school’s first state championship since 1975 with a 112.6-112.1 victory over second place Valparaiso.
Portage entered the final rotation leading Valpo 85.1-84.725 with the Indians to compete on bars and the Vikings on the beam. It came down to Portage’s final two gymnasts with sophomore Madison Kurtz and senior Mackenzie Barcelli needing to average a 9.45 to give Portage a state championship. Kurtz posted a 9.5, putting Barcelli in position to seal the deal in the final routine of her gymnastics career.
“I knew I had to stay calm and be solid,” Barcelli said. “I was kind of freaking out, but really just wanted to stay calm and focus on my bars routine that I’ve hit all year.”
Barcelli notched a 9.65 to put an exclamation point on her high school career by becoming the state all-around champion and clinching the state championship for her team.
“That was the best bars routine I have ever done in my entire life,” Barcelli said. “I knew right when I landed it that it was a great routine.”
For Portage head coach Karen Barcelli, it was a storybook ending to her first state championship with her daughter providing the heroics to clinch the title.
“She’s always been a pretty solid performer,” Karen Barcelli said. “I had a lot of faith in her, but I was just hoping everything would fall into place. I was just happy that they all did what they were supposed to be doing today. It didn’t even really dawn on me how good my daughter did, until later.”
Like many of her family members, teammates, friends and fans, Mackenzie Barcelli was overcome by emotion after winning the all-around state championship with a score of 38.325, edging out second place Alex Nickel of Angola, who scored a 38.150.
“Let me just say, I wanted to start crying, but I couldn’t because they had to take a picture of me,” Barcelli said. “I honestly didn’t really know. Right after we got done competing, my mom was bawling, we were all pretty much crying and we went down to talk to our parents. We knew we had won; I wasn’t concerned about how any of us had done individually.”
Barcelli exemplified the concept of going out with a bang, notching her personal best all-around score in the process of becoming the state floor (9.675) and all-around champions.
“Not even winning the all-around, but getting my personal best score for the final meet of my career was just a great feeling,” she said. “On top of that, winning all-around, it was like Jesus came down and touched me.”
Senior Lyndsey Cunningham also went out in style, achieving a career high 9.0 on the vault that helped garner Portage momentum for the rest of the meet.
“I think that Lyndsey hitting her first vault and getting a nine really pumped them up and really started something for the rest of the meet,” Karen Barcelli said.
Kurtz’s 9.5 on bars was pivotal in keeping Portage within striking distance entering Barcelli’s routine.
“Every time I’ve competed with that new skill, I messed it up really bad,” Kurtz said. “It was really ugly and disgusting. So, I was standing there and everyone was telling me to calm down, so I was standing there breathing, because that’s all you can do. I landed, and I stood there, and I was like, ‘I just made the whole thing.’ It was just extremely exhilarating.”
Junior Danielle Solis finished second on vault with a 9.850 to lead Portage to its first place team score of 29.2 on that event.
After winning the regular season dual meet against Valparaiso, the Indians had finished second to the Vikings in the Duneland Athletic Conference Meet, Chesterton Sectional and Valparaiso Regional. However, Portage came out on top when it really counted, silencing all the doubters and snapping a 38 year gymnastics state championship drought. The last time Portage won a state championship in any sport was the 1999-2000 school year in boys cross country and softball.
“All of our hard work has paid off,” Karen Barcelli said. “Everything we’ve been planning toward has come together. It’s kind of surreal.”
The Team- Senior Mackenzie Barcelli, senior Lyndsey Cunningham, senior Breanna Caldwell, junior Luiza Laragnoit, junior Danielle Solis, sophomore Madison Kurtz, sophomore Cali Garzella, sophomore Jordan Robinson, freshman Krystal Fitchett, freshman Lyric Lopez
Head Coach- Karen Barcelli
Assistant Coach- Paige Bomba