High school gymnastics: Lauren Eyssen leads Brunswick to surprise sectional crown

HUDSON — Coach Jacqueline George and the Brunswick gymnastics team have gone out of their way not to put any pressure on Lauren Eyssen. Until Saturday, when it was unavoidable. The freshman responded with aplomb, propelling the Blue Devils (142.0) to the Hudson Sectional championship over Medina (141.975) and River Magnificat (141.55) in a three-team duel decided by the equivalent of one fall on one event. Eyssen captured the vault with a 9.35, finished sixth on the uneven parallel bars and placed ninth in the all-around, posting Brunswick's best scores in each while qualifying for the Mentor District on Feb. 26. "I knew that the girls were really depending on me at this meet, especially on vault and bars," Eyssen said. "It felt really good to start the team off with a high score on vault, and it shows that the team can trust me when they need to." With Greater Cleveland Conference co-Gymnast of the Year Bree Vargo sidelined with a left ankle fracture — cheering while sporting a hard cast, on crutches — it was imperative for the Blue Devils to open the nearly seven-hour meet on a positive note. Suffice to say, she did it, setting the tone for the GCC champions to add another trophy and earn one of the four team spots at Mentor. "This was, by far, my best vault of the season," Eyssen said. "Coming in, I had the intention of performing a pike, but after my warmups were so good, I wanted to try a layout and see what would happen. And it worked in my favor." Though it was very unlikely that Brunswick could outscore the Bees and Blue Streaks after Vargo was injured last week, it had an ace in the hole. Three of them, actually. Senior Anna Taylor and juniors Lili Kotar and Alaina Timko were members of the Blue Devils' back-to-back state team meet qualifiers and used their big-meet experience to thrive at sectionals. The top 12 in each event advanced to districts. Taylor performed the top floor exercise of her career, scoring 9.2 to finish second behind Magnificat's Keira Leneghan, and was fourth on her specialty, the vault. The fourth-year letterwinner was fifth on the team on the floor at the GCC Meet. "To get a 9.2 on the floor never even crossed my mind until now," two-time state vault qualifier Taylor said, still giddy after completing the afternoon with her routine. "Setting our lineup was definitely a last-minute thing with (Vargo) going out, but we've been training for any possibility all season, so we were ready." Kotar had previously qualified for districts in every event but the floor. She then did so with a breakout performance to finish fourth, helping Brunswick post the second-best team score in the event to claim the overall crown by a miniscule 0.025 over the Bees. "I was having a difficult warmup, but you know what they say — fake it 'til you make it," a laughing Kotar said. "Even if you're not feeling confident, you have to be calm once you go onto the mat. I knew the better I did, the better it would be for our team." Timko advanced out of sectionals for the second time on the beam, placing a personal-best fourth behind Medina County peers Colleen Johnson and Madison Lee of Medina, as well as Jensen Heppner of Wadsworth. "The beam always feels like 'my event,' so I wasn't worried," said Timko, who was fifth on the beam at the 2020 West Geauga Sectional. "I'm constantly impressed with the girls on this team. We're in this together and we keep each other positive. It was my responsibility to come through for them." Freshman Aubrey Mueller (bars) and senior rookie Jenna Delrio (beam) also punched their tickets to Mentor with 12th-place efforts as Brunswick advanced a school-record tying six gymnasts. Contact Brian Dulik at brisports@hotmail.com. Follow him @BrianDulik on Twitter.