Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
SEEKING BALANCE
Twin Valley senior looking to score high marks again after injury threw her for a loop
The first sign pointing Maggie Storz toward her athletic future was hard to miss.
When the Twin Valley senior was playing soccer around age five, she spent more time turning cartwheels than chasing after the ball.
Storz’s mom, Doreen, took the hint and helped her daughter sign up for gymnastics.
“I was pretty fearless as a child,” Storz said. “I was willing to do anything. When I learned how to do a back handspring I wouldn’t even use my hands. I’d just jump back onto my head.”
It turned into a lifetime pursuit and Storz quickly climbed the ranks. She trained at Berks Gymnastic Academy and reached Level 10 when she was a high school freshman.
Storz was a state, regional and eastern national champion in the vault as a Level 9 eighth grader and was on that trajectory again the following year. She finished third in regionals and qualified for the Junior Olympic national meet.
That’s when she was thrown off course.
Storz landed awkwardly during her floor routine while she was training for nationals. She suffered a torn ACL and MCL and was knocked out of serious competition for a year.
Randy Roth, Storz’s coach, called the injury a “heartbreaker.”
“I learned you’ve got to really pay attention to what you’re doing and be careful,” Storz said. “That was really an eye-opener for me. That was the first real big injury I ever had. It was hard to keep doing gymnastics again after that.”
It took a year for Storz to recover physically and maybe longer to recover emotionally.
Storz essentially lost her sophomore season. She was at full strength as a junior but she wasn’t as fearless.
“When she came back to compete again, she was a lot more nervous than she was prior to the injuries,” Roth said. “We had to build back up through that, make her believe in herself. Believe that she had the ability to do the skills and be competitive.”
This season was supposed to be Storz’s curtain call in Level 10. She was ready to make another run at Junior Olympic Nationals and looked better than ever.
The coronavirus pandemic halted competition before she was able to reach that stage. Storz never had a chance to perform in the national meet after it was taken away by injury.
“This year was looking good until we had the lockdown,” Roth said. “She was on her game. She was firing on all eight cylinders. I feel confident she would have been at nationals this year. Absolutely.”
Like many athletes, Storz had to confront a sudden, unexpected end to her dreams.
“It was disappointing that I didn’t even get the chance,” she said. “All my hard work was erased. I’ll definitely wonder what could have happened.”
Storz will continue gymnastics at West Chester University, where she’s interested in studying either psychology or secondary education. She’ll minor in coaching.
The senior picked a Division II school because she wanted to stay close to home and enjoy a more relaxed atmosphere.
Roth said Storz was the class clown of his team. Her teammates loved that she often joked around and kept the mood light.
One time, before the setbacks, Roth saw Storz dancing to the music that was being pumped into the arena. She had to be reminded it was her turn. She was lost in her own world.
“I’m going to try to find my love back for the sport,” Storz said. “A lot of it has been really hard with the injuries and the seriousness of it all.”
Storz wants gymnastics to be fun again.
Like those days as a kid turning cartwheels on the soccer field.