Kees falls short of a medal on final day at state

PALATINE – Maddie Kees is an athlete that’s always pushing herself to improve and grow as a gymnast.

She’s also fearless, which she showed during Saturday’s IHSAstate gymnastics individual championship in Palatine.

The DeKalb-Sycamore co-op sophomore represented her Barbs team on vault and bars, falling short of medaling on either event, but certainly not for a lack of trying.

“I’m the type of person who would rather fall knowing that I went out there and did absolutely everything I could to win instead of just playing it safe,” she said. “I’m glad I went with it even though it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Hopefully next year I’ll be back.”

Kees just fell short of medaling on vault, taking eighth place with a 9.575 as Lake Zurich's Kayla Bailey and Carmel’s Lyndsey Basaratied for first place with a 9.725 each and there was a three-way tie for fifth place at 9.6.

“I didn’t score as high as I did yesterday, but it was still a pretty good vault,” Kees said. “I was excited to get back out there and compete in the event finals again, especially since I didn’t get to do that on vault last year.”

Last year, Kees took second place on beam and fifth on floor, but this year she fell short of advancing to the event finals, while achieving the rare accomplishment of qualifying on the other two events.

“I’m proud of her,” Barbs coach Andy Morreale said. “She was in a cast for almost six weeks and had a back injury last year. She really fought through. If she had two more weeks she would’ve been really good, but I thought she did a great job.”

She may have surprised herself a bit when she switched faults on Friday and beautifully executed her Yurchenko layout. She went with it again, but didn’t match the 9.6 she earned on Friday.

“It was still exciting that I got to compete in the vault finals,” she said. “I didn’t expect that so I was just happy to get to do it.”

She was also happy to challenge herself by inserting a difficult Gienger skill to her bars routine after finishing in the middle of the finals qualifiers with a 9.4.

Unfortunately, she fell during the release move and it knocked her score down to a 9.1 for 10th place.

“That was the first time I’ve ever completed it and I just wanted to go all out for the event finals since I had nothing to lose,” she said. “I’m not sure what happened. My hand slipped or something. I didn’t know.I warmed it up really good and I was confident when I went out there.”

While it may not have worked this time, don’t be surprised when Kees knocks it out of the ballpark in the near future. The challenge is there; now it’s just a matter of time to determine when she nails it consistently.

“She’s a tiger when it comes to that,” Morreale said. “I was happy that she was aggressive enough to want to do it and that’s what she wanted.”

Morreale and Kees talked about such a possibility even before she made the finals on bars, so when she qualified on Friday, she was already thinking ahead.

“She made it in warm-ups,” Morreale said. “It looked good, but that was the first time she ever did it on the floor. It’s a learning experience.”

And she’s only halfway through her high school gymnastics career, at a program that’s produced some great ones, including Madison Hickey, Aleah Leman, Alyssa Lopez and Jessica Morreale, who have 23 medals between them.

Of course, next year she has high hopes not just for herself, but also for her team. The Barbs didn’t advance to state this year for just the second time in six seasons.

“I feel like the past two years I've had a rough way to get to state because of injuries,” she said. “I’m hoping next year I can show my full potential, and I’m excited for the team. We're only losing one senior (Livi Morey) and returning people, and we have Molly(Kuntzi) coming back from her elbow injury and a couple freshmen coming in.”