Lake Braddocks Madi Bell captures all-around title at state meet
Before she steps on the mat for her routines, Lake Braddock’s Madi Bell always turns to one of her teammates and asks, “I’m good, right?”
Between high school gymnastics and her junior Olympic club team, Bell practices roughly 4½ hours per day, so she knows her routines. But that little bit of reassurance before she salutes the judges goes a long way for the sophomore.
On Saturday afternoon, she nailed each of her four routines to clinch the Virginia all-around individual title at Lightridge High in Aldie, posting a score of 38.925 to beat runner-up Ally Livesay (Mechanicsville, 37.625) and Nyra Foosness (Stafford, 37.600).
“Yesterday I was so happy for my team, and I knew today was the exact same thing,” Bell said a day after the Bruins repeated as Class 6 team champions.
Teammate Abby Parrish also made the podium for the all-around — the freshman tied for fourth place with Grassfield’s Reagan Davis, posting a score of 37.425. Lake Braddock had the top four finishers in the uneven bars, with senior Zoe Brokamp and sophomore Maggie Suson tying for first place at 9.85, putting Bell in third place and Parrish in fourth.
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“They had the camaraderie, but then on bars you could see that each of them wanted to do better. So it was cool to see that,” Coach Mike Cooper said.
Not only did Bell improve upon last year’s third-place all-around finish, but she also made the podium in each of the four events. Her scores in bars and beam — both 9.825 — were her best of the day, followed by a 9.7 on vault and a 9.575 on the floor. Bell’s favorite event is beam, on which she scored a perfect 10 at the Patriot District tournament.
“Today I was really nervous on beam, but I still told myself to be calm and hit my routine,” Bell said.
Battlefield also had another good day following its second-place finish at Friday’s team competition. Ryan Grothoff scored a 9.750 to snag the beam title, while teammate Jordan Ignacio — who notched a perfect 10 Friday — finished just behind in second. The Bobcats switched places in the floor event, with Ignacio taking home that medal and Grothoff being the runner-up.
Lake Braddock’s Rianna Nagle finished in a three-way tie for third on the floor with Bell and Salem’s Alexis Albright. South County’s Alexia Zakaryan and Amore Howard finished third and fourth on the vault, behind Bell and first-place TaeLyn Canty of Mountain View.
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