ShawneeDispatch.com

Photo by Richard Gwin

Candice Owen, Shawnee Mission Northwest senior, works on the balance beam with ease during Monday's All-Around Invitational meet at Lawrence High.

Photo by Richard Gwin

Shawnee Mission Northwest's Mary Jane Graves works her routine on the Balance Beam, during a All Round Invitational Monday Oct 6th, 2008 at LHS.

Jackie Cipollini’s gymnastics squad at times has looked like a wounded army this season, and with good reason.

The Cougars are nursing a slew of injuries, mostly of the ankle and knee variety.

Even so, the moment they’ve stepped on the mat they’ve blocked out their injuries and carried on the winning tradition Shawnee Mission Northwest gymnastics is known for.

They knocked off defending state champion Olathe East on Sept. 10 at Lawrence High and have finished second or third at every other meet this season.

On Monday, however, it was a chance for individuals to step out from the shadows of team competition and compete at the All-Around Invitational at Lawrence High. Three Cougars competed — Candice Owen, Sierra Trussell and Mary Jane Graves — and two cracked the top 10 in a field of about 40 gymnasts.

Owen placed sixth in the all-around with a score of 34.175. Trussell was eighth, and Graves finished 14th.

Lee’s Summit (Mo.)’s Josselyn Mackey was the all-around champion with 36.4 points. Teammates Rachel Tillotson and Brittany Kallenberger were second and fourth, respectively.

“They have big bar and vault workers, so they really dominated that part,” Cipollini said of Lee’s Summit. “But we did OK. We brought home the beam winner. Sierra Trussell took the beam with a 9.2 and Candice placed in the top five in three events.”

Trussell’s balance beam performance marked the second straight meet she has won the event, and she held off Mackey (8.925) to do it.

Owen’s best event of the night was the floor exercise where her score of 9.1 trailed only event winner Drue Davis (9.4) of Free State. Owen was fourth on the beam (8.7) and fifth on the uneven bars (7.35).

Cipollini was particularly proud of her athletes because they scored high without delivering their most difficult routines. Owen has a pair of bad ankles and Trussell has an injured left knee. Two other Cougar all-arounders — Molli Bird and Jessica Tingle — also have nagging injuries. That said, Cipollini said the Cougars’ goals are unchanged.

“We plan to take a team of five varsity all-around gymnasts to the state meet, which is highly rare at the high school level,” she said.

Part of that plan will involve limiting Owen and others’ events during the next two weeks to heal and fine-tune tougher routines while throwing younger gymnasts into the lineup to gain experience.

“The girls are excited,” Cipollini said. “They’re excited to throw in new tricks and get their new skills into their routines, so that give you a nice feeling to know they’re pushing themselves and asking for further difficulty down the road. It’s challenging for me, but nothing I can’t handle and nothing they can’t handle.”

Three Shawnee Mission North gymnasts also competed at the meet but did not bring home medalist honors. Allison Cushing finished 16th in the all-around competition, Abby Row was 26th and Halyn Massey was 32nd.

Both North and Northwest next compete at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Shawnee Mission North Invitational.