Lexi Voukidis of Ridgefield captured a state title on the uneven bars Friday at the 3A/2A/1A state gymnastics meet at Sammamish High School in Bellevue.
The junior scored 9.225 on the bars to beat out runner-up Brook Adkins of Ballard, who scored a 9.150.
Ridgefield teammate Evie Dreiling was part of the a three-way tie for third place on the floor exercise with a score of 9.050.
Abigail Mendoza of Prairie (ninth in the vault) and Hayden Wojack of Prairie (tied for 10th on the bars) also earned top-10 finishes during Friday’s apparatus finals at the state meet.
Columbia River placed sixth in the team standings with a score of 154.900 on Thursday. Mendoza placed ninth in the all-around on Thursday with a score of 34.900.
Ridgefield coach Richard Samuels was selected as the 3A/2A state coach of the year by the Washington State Gymnastics Coaches Association, and he was inducted into the WSGCA Hall of Fame.
Samuels coached gymnastics at Fort Vancouver High School from 2003-2013 before taking over the program at Ridgefield in 2014. In 20-plus years of coaching, he has taken athletes to the state meet every year but one.
4A STATE — Carly Christ of Union placed fourth in the all-around and Camas placed fourth in the team standings at the 4A state meet at Sammamish High School.
Christ posted an all-around score of 36.725 to finish fourth. Teammate Gabriella Howard was eighth (36.325) and Camas’ Olivia Aguirre with 10th (35.675).
Christ also advanced to Saturday’s individual apparatus finals in the vault and bars. Howard qualified for the vault and beam.
Also advancing were Aguirre (vault), Sneha Shankar of Camas (vault) and Keira Yuthasastrakosol of Union (floor).
