Crossley wins all-around state gymnastics title

Broadmoor Elementary School student Kendall Crossley poses with all her medals following her all-around state gymnastics championship last March in Columbia, Mo.

Kendall Crossley was waiting with
bated breath – hoping what happened a year ago wasn’t going to repeat itself.

In March of 2018, Kendall was ahead
in the standings during the Missouri State Gymnastics Championships with only
one competitor remaining. She was forced to wait for the final scores to roll
in.

The wait was hard, but the result
was even more difficult for Kendall as she lost the all-around state
championship by one-tenth of a point. It was a tough setback for Kendall,
despite earning the state championship in the uneven bars and a runner-up
finish in the all-around Level 3 competition.

Kendall, who is a student at
Broadmoor Elementary, got back to work instead of sulking about her close loss.
She used that as motivation.

Not only did Kendall have to get past a difficult loss, she also had to move to a level where she would be competing against older, more experienced competitors. She rose to the challenge and found herself in the exact same spot last month – waiting for the final competitor to finish her routine.

This time, Kendall was all smiles.
On March 22, she became the Missouri Level 4 10D state champion at Columbia
College in Columbia, Mo., with a score of 36.85, which turned out to be her
highest scoring meet of the season as she led from start to finish.

“When I finally realized I had won the state championship,
it made me feel happy and proud of myself,” she said. “I also felt relieved
because I didn’t have to worry about being disappointed. I was very nervous
waiting for the scores because I didn’t want to lose out on first place again
by a tiny amount.”

Kendall performed well in all her events during the state
competition as she was a state champion on vault and floor exercise. She was
also third on uneven bars and fourth on balance beam.

 “I could not be
prouder of her,” her father Shawn said. “It is well-deserved, and saying she
worked for it doesn’t begin to do it justice.”

The journey to a state championship has been a long time
coming for Kendall, who has given up a lot to focus on her gymnastics. She
currently competes at Eagles Gymnastics in Martin City, MO., and has been there
since she was 3-years-old.

“Since June she has spent
11-plus hours every week in the gym,” Shawn said. “Not only does she do Level 4
gymnastics at Eagles, she also takes Elite Ballet and Jazz/Lyrical dance. She
misses out on playing other sports, she misses family outings, she misses
birthday parties, she misses father/daughter dances, she misses being at home.
It’s a life of go, go, go.

“It’s straight to the gym after school
and she isn’t home until after 9 by the time we get food somewhere. She is
dedicated to this sport, and it’s a level that is hard to explain unless you
see it on a daily basis.”

It is a commitment that has always been
there from Kendall, but it was no more tested than last season when she was
forced to make a difficult decision.

Kendall had high hopes for herself in her
second season as a Level 3 gymnast, but her body was fighting back. She was
diagnosed with a pars stress fracture in her back and a spine specialist
recommended she end her season prematurely.

After some discussion, and with the blessing of the doctors, she was allowed to continue her season with limitations in practice. Even with the obstacles, Kendall was atop the leaderboard in the state championships in 2018 at Union Station in Kansas City.

She led from the start, but when the
final scores came in, that one-tenth of point was the difference between a runner-up
and a state championship.

“Last year was very difficult for many reasons,” Kendall
said. “I had to lead my level 3 team with a hurt back. I felt like I needed to
be a good example. I couldn’t do the best that I could do. I had to sit out
some parts of practice. I felt like I was wasting time and wasn’t improving.”

Kendall took some time to recover from her injury after
the season and then got right back to work. Not only did she have to move up a
level, she also had to learn brand new routines for all four of her events.

“A great number of the girls she would
compete against this year would have a leg up because they would have had a
full year of practicing and performing these routines,” Shawn said. “It was
supposed to be a down year for Kendall, one with a bit of a learning curve.
That was the expectation at least. However, Kendall is very self-motivated and
incredibly driven. She set out with the mindset that this would be her year.”

The 11-year-old Louisburg resident got her season off to a good start with a pair of all-around runner-up finishes and then took first in the all-around in three of her next four meets that led up to the Missouri State Championships and her state title.

All the success she achieved also saw a
jump in competition. Kendall will now be competing in Level 6 gymnastics with
the Eagles, which means more of a time commitment for a girl that has school
and after-school activities.

“I am still hungry for more,” Kendall
said. “The more I win, the more other people want to beat me. There may always
be someone working harder than me and I don’t want that.”