The gymnast hits the trifecta, bringing home gold in vault, bars and all-around.

TACOMA – The third time is always the charm, as the saying goes.

After two straight bronzes in the all-around competition, Marie Welsh made the big leap to the top as she came home with three state titles in her third straight year at the 2A/3A state gymnastics meet at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall this weekend.

Welsh won the all-around title on Friday night, then took home two individual titles in the bars and vault on Saturday afternoon.

She took first in the all-around with a score of 38.625, then won the bars event with a 9.675 and the vault with a 9.775.

The all-around score broke the school record she set last week and her vault and bars score set a new school record as well.

Welsh finished third her last two years in the all-around, as she scored well in her other events but fell on the beam, costing her that one point she needed to win.

“It feels great,” she said. “I’m excited. I wanted it.”

Her high score helped Bainbridge place third as a team with a total score of 172.075 points.

The Spartans also won the 3A all-academic championship with a grade-point average of 3.818.

“(We’re) very happy,” head coach Cindy Guy said. “Very happy. I thought we had a very good meet. I’m very proud of the kids and how well they competed.

“They were excited to be here,” she continued. “We felt like we deserved to be here and we earned the right to be here. We had the highest score of the season, but when we talked in the car on the way home (Friday night), we still felt we can do better.”

Friday night, Bainbridge began their rotation on the floor and started strong with a 45.525.

The six individuals scored an 8.0 or higher, including Katie Mathews scoring a 9.225, Sophie Wenzlau scoring a 9.175 and Welsh scoring a 9.65.

Annie Zuckerman had the lowest score, but that was due to her rolling her ankle during the floor warmups.

Guy said they couldn’t sub her out because it was against the rules, but Zuckerman got her ankle taped up and gutted it out for her other two events.

“That was tough because we didn’t know what she could do,” Guy said, noting that Welsh tweaked her knee during Friday night’s performance and Wenzlau worked through a bad back. “But everyone scored really well.”

The team continued their run of good performances on the vault with a total score of 43.725, highlighted by Welsh nailing a layout Yurchenko for a score of 9.825.

But the team struggled on the bars as they couldn’t improve on the difficulty of their routines.

The first four tumblers for the Spartans scored in the 6.0 range, but Wenzlau posted a 8.275 and Welsh scored a 9.525.

“We had the routines but we didn’t practice them enough,” Guy said. “But we’ll fix that for next year.”

Heading into the beam, Bainbridge needed to score high to hold out any hope of hanging with Issaquah and Newport.

They did just that, scoring a 45.075 to take first on the event.

Lauren Fleming was the only gymnast who fell, but it was only one time.

Mathews, Katheen Callahan, Zuckerman, Wenzlau and Welsh didn’t fall once, with Welsh scoring a 9.625 to sew up the all-around title.

Welsh almost fell after her back walkover-back handspring combination, but was able to right herself.

“It was really nerve wracking, but I didn’t want to think about it,” she said. “I was like, ‘stay calm. You’re OK.’ By then I knew I had to stay on the beam to be able to get the title.”

“I thought we really nailed the beam (as a team,)” Guy said. “We kinda knew if she scored high on the beam, she would win. Then when we saw the score, we knew she had it.”

Despite five falls on the beam, Newport took first in the vault and bars and placed second on the floor to win the championship.

Issaquah was second by 1.575 points.

“We were really proud of our performance,” Welsh said. “We had a little trouble on bars, but we bounced back on beam. Our floor and vault (performances) worked really well for us, so I’m really proud and happy. It’s a great year.”

Thanks to her performance, Welsh qualified in all four individual events on Saturday.

Performing on a injured knee, she placed tenth in the floor exercise as she slipped at the end of one of her floor passes, then placed tenth on the beam as she fell off twice.

Welsh rebounded by performing a clean bars routine for the first place finish and stuck her vault for another win.

It’s the first time since Brooke Nall did it in 2003 and 2004 that a Spartan gymnast has claimed the all-around title and two individual titles.

But Welsh won’t freak out about the expectation put on her by many to repeat the feat next year.

“I’m not going to worry about it,” she said. “A lot of the competition is gone, so I’m really excited to see who comes back.”

Next year, the Spartans will be among the favorites to win it all.

They’ll lose senior Katherine Samstag, but return top talent in Welsh, Wenzlau, Fleming, Callahan, Zuckerman, co-captain Stella Wilson, Mathews, Talia Weiss and Eva Fazzini.

Plus, both Welsh and Guy said there are more talented freshman coming up next year.

Guy admitted the pressure will be on them to do well, but she welcomes it.

“To do well at state you have to have a lot of luck,” she said. “You never know what the other teams are going to be. But why coach if you aren’t going to try to win?”