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Chaplain’s daughter takes state

McChord’s Mallory Husfelt took a trying situation like frequent moves, and turned it into a state championship last month. Photo by Tyler Hemstreet

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Before each gymnastic meet of the season, 13-year-old Mallory Husfelt would gather her Grace Gymnastics Center teammates in a tight circle and say a quick prayer.

"It's a prayer and motivation circle," said Husfelt, an eighth-grader at Curtis Junior High School. "We'd just pray that everybody does their best."

That was certainly the case April 23-25 at the Washington State Championships at Sammamish High School, as Husfelt won a Level 5 individual state title and her team wrapped up a second place finish.

Mallory, whose father, Lt. Col. Michael Husfelt, is a chaplain with the 62nd Airlift Wing's chapel support center at McChord Field, moved with her family to Washington nearly two years ago from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Although her father was gone on a deployment during the state competition, Mallory's mother, Michele, was sending her husband updates via text message.

Mallory earned the top score on bars, second highest in vault and fifth in the floor competition, which combined with her performance on the beam for the top overall score.

While moving five times for her father's career - including stops as far away as Norway and England - while growing up made it hard for Mallory to stay with gymnastics, she decided to stick with it after finding a good club team in Ohio. The Husfelts found Grace at the Lakewood YMCA because it was close to their on base home, knowing nothing about the program's history of numerous club championships.

But Mallory embraced the new opportunity.

"This gym is more serious than my other gym, but I like it," she said.

Practicing for nearly four hours a day three times a week and juggling schoolwork can make a teenager choose what's important to her.

"Sometimes on Friday nights I get invited to go to the movies and I can't go because of practice," Mallory said. "But I love our team and all the girls on it."

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