Mat-Su athletes qualify for 2013 Junior Olympics National Championships

WASILLA — Perhaps all the praying paid off. It could be the 24 hours a week she spends training. Or maybe it’s a little of both.

Whatever the formula, it’s paid off for Mackenzie Smith, who recently qualified for the 2013 USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics National Championships.

A 15-year-old Level 10 gymnast who trains at Denali Gymnastics in Wasilla, the Eagle River athlete is believed to be the first female to qualify for nationals from a Valley club. Her path to nationals, which begins next week in Minneapolis, Minn., was paved by a third-place finish overall in the all-around competition at the Region 2 Championships. Her highest finish came with a second place on the uneven bars with a score of 8.915, and she placed third on the balance beam with a 9.175.

“Beam’s my best event,” Smith said before practice Monday. “It is when it goes well, when I stay on.”

While she’ll compete in all four women’s events at nationals — beam, bars, vault and floor exercise — Smith said she is most optimistic about her chances to qualify for the finals in the balance beam.

“I want to stay on all my events and hopefully place in some of them,” she said, adding that she has a special weapon to deal with the nerves associated with competition. “Yeah, I’m nervous. I pray a lot.”

She’s been training since age 5, and said that even after a decade of work and sacrifice — training as much as 24 hours a week — she loves her sport and is very motivated to continue.

“Why do I do this? Actually, I don’t get tired of it at all,” she said, “because on the weekends, I get really bored. So, it keeps me busy and I’m glad I have gymnastics.”

Although several male gymnasts have advanced to nationals in the past from Denali Gymnastics, Smith is believed to be the first female from a Valley club, said her coach, Melissa Chan.

“I was just ecstatic,” she said about realizing Smith had qualified. “It’s just an awesome thing. … It’s awesome and it’s one of those things the younger kids can look at and say, ‘I can do this. I can make it to these bigger things to really represent.’ They watch her right now and go, ‘Ooh, she’s going there.’”

As for Smith’s technique of praying before and during her routines, Chan said she supports whatever works — but there’s no doubt she also has her share of nerves for her students.

“I think they tend to go into a zone (during competition), but once they get on that equipment, I can’t do anything for them,” she said. “All the prep work has to have happened beforehand, and once they get up there, there’s nothing I can do to help.”

That example is one thing that helps motivate another Denali women’s competitor, 16-year-old Baylee Bartgis. A Level 9 gymnast, she qualified for the 2013 Women’s Level 9 Western Gymnastics Championships in Roseville, Calif.

Training with other top athletes is a good motivator, Bartgis said.

“It helps so much,” she said. “Whenever I get frustrated with skills or not hitting my routines and stuff, I hear them cheering for me — ‘let’s go Baylee, you got it.’ It helps so much and it makes me emotional, because they have my back.”

At Westerns, Bartgis said she’s looking for a good showing from her floor exercise.

“My dance is good,” she said. “I dance at one of the studios here in Wasilla, so I use a lot of dance.”

Another local gymnast who’s hopeful his floor routine will take him to the national finals is 18-year-old Jonathan Stogdill. The homeschooled Valley athlete leaves today for the men’s nationals, which will be held in Portland, Ore.

He qualified with an eighth place finish in the all-around, paced by a second-place finish in the floor exercise with a score of 14.30 and fourth-place showing on the parallel bars with 12.80.

Although he’ll compete in all of the men’s events — floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar — Stogdill said he’s most hopeful to make the finals with his floor routine.

“The first competition’s on Thursday,” he said. “I don’t know what my first (event) is, but floor is my last. Hopefully I won’t be tired out.”

This was his third year trying to qualify for nationals, and he did it in his last year of eligibility.

“This is my third year trying to qualify, but I hadn’t made it before,” he said. “I was pretty excited, and yes, I am (nervous). I want to hit my floor routine and make it so I can qualify to go to finals. If I qualify for finals, that means I’ll be competing for two days instead of just one.”

So what makes his floor exercise stand out as his best event?

“It’s pretty consistent,” Stogdill said. “I can stick almost every pass and it’s just a clean routine.”

Some of that can be attributed to an injury the gymnast suffered a couple of years ago, said his coach, Ryan Childers.

“He’s very good at presenting, he always has been,” Childers said. “But actually, when he busted his arm a couple years ago, he was stuck on a trampoline for six months. He just got really good at air skills and was killer on the tramp. He was able to apply that to the floor, so he can flip and twist like it’s nothing.”

That flipping and twisting may also help Stogdill realize another dream of taking his gymnastics to the next level. He said he’s considering changing disciplines and concentrating on trampoline and tumbling.

“I was invited down to Reno, Nev., to train with the U.S. national team for that,” he said, adding he’ll probably leave for that later this summer.

Gymnastics has been a major part of Stogdill’s life for about as long as he can remember, he said. He began at age 4, and now is training about 15 hours a week, although that can fluctuate.

“It depends on if it’s competition season or not,” he said.

But don’t feel sorry for him spending all that time in the gym away from his friends. Stogdill said he has plenty of pals at Denali. “A lot of my friends are here, so it’s not that bad.”

Childers agrees that his student “has a good shot on floor” to make the finals. “He got second place at regionals and his score is up there with the top 20. I think floor and vault are his strongest events.”

Contact reporter Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.