There’s something about approaching events by herself that made Lacey Baxter want to run and hide.

Last year, Baxter was Free State High’s lone representative at the Kansas state gymnastics meet. She had success, including a sixth-place finish on beam, but never found a comfort zone the entire day.

“There was a lot of nerves,” Baxter said. “Especially when I went on beam. I wasn’t happy with my beam performance at state because of the nerves.”

At least this year, she’ll have her team by her side.

The Free State gymnastics team, fueled by a second-place finish at regionals Oct. 30 in Emporia, qualified as a team for today’s state meet, which starts at noon in Newton.

In gymnastics, where routines are polished and perfected as the season progresses, it’s important to peak at the end of the season — and Free State definitely is.

Last week’s total of 101.975 was the highest team score the Firebirds achieved all year, and good enough for second place in the seven-team regional. Led by Baxter, who finished in the top five in all four events (beam, bars, floor and vault) as well as third place in all-around, the whole team — who besides Baxter includes sophomores Karen Kroge and Sara Hase, junior Elena Zeitler and senior Kim Baker– made the trip Friday to Newton in preparation for today’s meet.

“It’s fun to have the whole team be able to go,” FSHS coach Kathy Johnson said. “It’s really nice to have that moral support and have somebody there to pump you up if you have a bad event.”

Nobody knows that better than Baxter. She’s leery of making goals for today’s meet, but said being able to compete with her team would only help her chances.

“We’re so excited to go as a team,” Baxter said. “It’ll be the first time I get to go with a team. Hopefully this year I can go down there and calm myself down and have fun, because it will be my last time to go.”