Chasing a medal

The remnants of two scars are still visible on Katie Snyder’s left forearm, a constant reminder of the injury that could have ended her career.
There are 12 pieces of metal inside, screws that helped put her shattered bones back together.
She hopes to walk away from the final meet of her career with a different kind of medal, one that signifies she’s one of the best gymnasts to ever walk the halls at Jay County High School.
Snyder, a JCHS senior, will close her gymnastics career by competing in the IHSAA Gymnastics State Finals at 1 p.m. Saturday at Ball State University’s Worthen Arena.
 “I want to medal, and get the vault record,” said Snyder, reiterating the goals she’s focused on ever since competing on the vault at the state finals as a freshman. “I’ve put so much into this sport. I don’t want to be left empty handed.”
Snyder enters the state finals with her strongest chances at medals coming on the vault, which has always been her strongest event, and balance beam, where she has made great strides in the last few weeks.
She won the Indiana Gymnastics Level 8 state title as a 14-year-old in 2009, and proved herself to be one of the best again last season when she came up just short of a medal with a 9.475 for a seventh-place finish at the IHSAA state finals. She enters this season’s state meet as the No. 22 seed after placing fifth at the Huntington North regional with a 9.35.
The top six athletes on each event and in the all-around earn a state medal. The sixth-place score on the vault at the state finals has been between 9.55 and 9.675 over the course of the last four seasons.
“She needs to just clean up her entry,” said Jay County coach Lora Schlosser, who has been coaching Snyder since she started competing at age 6. “It’s so fast you can barely see (the details). Getting the clean entry always makes a better vault — a little more height, a little more distance and a stuck landing.”
Snyder was third on the beam at the regional meet with a season-best 9.225 and is tied for the No. 10 seed on the event. She is also seeded 18th out of 34 all-around competitors, and 29th on both the floor exercise and uneven bars.
The sixth-place state scores on those events last season were 9.425 on the beam and floor and 9.475 on the bars.
For Snyder to be able to compete at all, let alone in the state finals with a chance at being on the medal standing, once seemed like an impossibility.
After going to the state finals on the vault as a freshman, Snyder gave up cheerleading in order to focus on gymnastics. She spent the summer honing her craft with a goal of reaching the state finals as an all-around competitor.
Then, on a snowy Saturday afternoon in February, 2011, her career almost ended. She was performing a handstand on the high bar during the Connersville Invitational when she reached out to grab the bar, and missed.
Snyder fell all the way to the mat, attempting to brace herself with her left arm. It broke, in several places.
One doctor told her she might never compete in gymnastics again. That was a prognosis she was unwilling to accept.
“I wasn’t going to let that doctor sit there and tell me, ‘You are never competing again,’” said Snyder. “If it’s going to hurt, it’s going to hurt, but I’m not giving up …”
She was back in the gym less than four months after having surgery, during which 12 screws were used to help fuse her bones back together. And she was ready to lead the team again during her junior season.
“Hours after surgery she was thinking, ‘When I’m I going to get back in the gym and get going,’” said Schlosser. “So she was ready to go and she worked through it.
“I think most people would have just admitted defeat and given up. Not her.
“She came at it headstrong, kind of like a bull. … She just attacked it. … She’s just a very motivated and strong-willed girl.”
After spending the 2011 sectional and regional tournaments in tears — the anguish of not being able to compete hurt more than they physical pain of the broken arm — Snyder was motivated to prove she was back in 2012. She won her first sectional title on the vault and went on to place fifth on the event in the regional to earn her second state berth.
She competed third out of 46 competitors at the state meet and posted a 9.475, which at the time she didn’t believe would be enough to have her in medal contention. But as they day went on, she sat, and she waited, and her score started looking better and better.
With just one gymnast left she was locked in a three-way tie for sixth place. But Emily Baker of Franklin Central closed the competition a 9.55, dropping Snyder to seventh place.
Again, her season ended in tears.
“It was awful, knowing you sat in a three-way tie for sixth place and you had one girl left, one,” Snyder said. “And she knocks you from sixth to seventh. You just felt like it hit you and you didn’t do well enough.”
That pain has provided a spark this year as Snyder strives to take that one final step onto the state podium.
She led Jay County to an undefeated regular season with an 11-0 record, narrowly missing out on matching Danae Klatt’s school vault record of 9.575 when she posted a 9.55 during a win over Connersville. She swept the sectional events to lead the Patriots to their first title in five years, and then finished as the all-around runner-up at the Huntington North regional.
She’s been especially focused over the last few weeks since signing to run track in college at Indiana Wesleyan University, a decision that signified her career in the sport she loves will soon be over.
“I’m not really a nervous type of person,” Snyder said, “but it’s settling in that I have two days and my entire gymnastics career is just … done.
“I think it’ll hit me Sunday when I wake up.
“This is it.”
Snyder has already put together one of the best careers in the history of JCHS gymnastics.
Her top all-around score of 36.25 ranks fourth in school history behind only Dawn Ogden, two-time state medalist Hannah Williams and Klatt. She owns five sectional championships on individual events, and an all-around sectional title. Her all-around runner-up effort at the regional matched Williams for the best finish in school history.
She wants to finish strong, with tears of joy this time, by becoming just the third Patriot gymnast to stand on the medal stand at the state finals.
“I’d cry,” said Snyder. “Not many people can say they have a state medal. I want to be part of that.
“I want to go down as being one of the best.”[[In-content Ad]]