How do you follow a state championship when much of your previous team — i.e., your support network — has graduated?
If you're Reagan Kelley, you shut out distractions and work harder.
After consistently posting many of the highest event scores in the metro during the regular season, the Watertown-Mayer/Mound Westonka senior gymnast won her second consecutive Class 1A all-around title at the state meet, outscoring Big Lake rival Brittany Krumrei 38.5-38.15.
Along the way Kelley, one of few on her team who attends school at Mound Westonka, won the vault and finished second on the balance beam, the uneven parallel bars and the floor exercise.
Kelley is the Star Tribune's Metro Gymnast of the Year, just as she was in 2021-22.
As fulfilling as it was to win a second all-around title, Kelley said doing it on her own, without so many of the teammates who had surrounded her in 2022 when they also won the Class 1A team title, was a little isolating.
At the end of the 2021-22 season, she and teammate Anna Mielke dueled to the wire for the all-around title.
"I am so happy with how my season went, and I'm so proud of the team. I know I personally did as well as I possibly could," said Kelley, who will take her gymnastics skills to Winona State next season.
"Last year, because I was doing it with Anna and she was a friend, it was a distraction from the pressure. This year, because I was competing against people I don't know very well, it was a little more stressful."
She credited her ability to shut out the outside noise as she won her second title, but she admitted to one small regret.
"I wish I would have soaked up the moment a little more," she said. "It was a pretty stressful day."
