3 area gymnasts headed to nationals

Years of hard work are about to pay off for three area gymnasts.

Shaydi Huston, Lucy Toelke and Maya Schroeder will be representing Flathead Gymnastics Academy this weekend at the Level 9 Western Nationals Championship in Coralville, Iowa.

The three qualified for the competition through a series of meets at the state and regional level.

Only Level 9 gymnasts can qualify for Western Nationals, which plays host to athletes from Region 2, which encompasses Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. Levels 9 and 10 are the top two levels in the USA Gymnastics Development Program.

“This year, especially for all three of them to qualify, we’re super proud of them, because it has not been easy,” Flathead Gymnastics co-owner Keeley Lowney said.

Lowney and her husband, David Tighe, have run Flathead Gymnastics since 2011. In early 2020, the gym moved to its current location on US Route 2 in west Kalispell. Shortly after that, COVID-19 hit and the gym was forced to close for several months.

Tighe and Lowney started doing workouts via Zoom until they were able to reopen.

“It was really hard for me to get on the Zoom classes (last year), but it definitely was super fun whenever I got on there,” Huston said. “But as soon as I got on there, to see everybody’s face was super nice.”

Then it was full speed ahead into training for Huston, Toelcke and Schroeder. Toelcke, a high school sophomore, is the only one of the bunch with nationals experience (she qualified in 2018). Huston could have qualified for nationals last year but the event was not held.

Keeping with tradition at Flathead Gymnastics, Huston, a senior, got to choose an away meet to attend this year.

She picked the Metroplex Challenge in Allen, Texas, held in February.

There were a couple of snags along the way, including a delayed flight that caused Toelcke and Huston to miss their sessions. Event organizers were able to get both into a different session.

“(They) let me compete with the Level 8s as a Level 9,” Huston said. “So they kind of just threw me in this session. And so I was still able to compete, obviously not with my teammates, but I was able to compete and still have a lot of fun with it.”

But soon after all of that, Toelcke got a call from the Flathead County Health Department informing her that she was being quarantined due to close contact with someone who had tested positive with the coronavirus.

Not wanting to stay in Texas and hoping to escape the incoming polar vortex, Toelcke and her mother rented a car and drove back to Montana. It’s become sort of a running joke at the gym.

“I never thought she’d (Toelcke) be able to laugh about it, but I admire her so much,” Lowney said. “She was laughing by the next week at the next meet that we were at.”

At regionals, which were held in Helena this year, Toelcke placed fourth in all-around, and earned second on the balance beam and on the floor exercise. Schroeder placed third in all-around and also third on floor and on vault. Huston placed second all-around, taking first place on beam and bars and third on vault.

Flathead Gymnastics took a total of 18 gymnasts to regionals this year.

Lowney estimates her Level 9 gymnasts practice 17 hours a week, Monday through Thursday. That number goes up to 21 in the summer when they are out of school.

That schedule should serve Huston well when she heads to Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia in the fall, where she’ll participate in the tumbling and acrobatics program.

“It’s actually a lot like Montana,” she said. “It’s really small and it’s really cute.”

All three gymnasts will be competing in sessions today at the Xtream Arena in Coralville.