Eagle Staff Report

ALVIN -- Rudder junior Enoch Rodriguez won a pair of gold medals, and the Class 3A Rangers held their own against the big schools to finish fourth at the 44th annual Texas High School Gymnastics Championships that wrapped up Saturday.

Rodriguez, the defending all-around and pommel horse champion from Bryan's state title team last season, repeated as the pommel horse champion and also won the horizontal bar.

But the story for Rudder was the nine-man team's 322.4-point total, a mark that trailed Kingwood, Lakeview Centennial and Odessa Permian but one that exceeded even the young Rangers' expectations.

"Top six was our goal, and for us to be able move to fourth was amazing, especially finishing ahead of Rockwall," Rudder head coach J.T. Fletcher said.

Rockwall made Rudder earn that fourth-place spot.

Kingwood won with 330.35 points followed by Centennial (327.85) and Permian (327.1) -- three teams Fletcher admitted his squad had little chance to catch. But with a goal of gaining state-meet experience for next season, the Rangers also practiced some one-on-one skills by edging past Rockwall in the sixth and final event. Rudder was on the vault; Rockwall was on the rings, and the Rangers easily passed the Yellowjackets, who finished with 321.15 points.

"Each boy really did his part at some point in the competition," Fletcher said. "We had some great performances over the two days. Some kids hit their personal bests."

Rodriguez finished second in the all-around, fifth on the vault, seventh on the parallel bars and ninth on the floor and rings.

Junior Michael Gonzalez took third on the parallel bars and 11th on the rings.

Rodriguez and Gonzalez were the only Rangers to reach the individual finals, but they had plenty of support in the team competition. With six gymnasts competing in each event and the top three counting for the team score, Rudder used juniors Tyler Houdek, Brendan Leo, Marc Herrera and Roberto Ochoa and freshmen Cody White, Shay Leo and Kenneth Newbold in its team rotation. White played a key role in the vault, sticking his landings and scoring in the 9s for the first time in his young career -- and exactly when Rudder needed him to.

An even bigger key for the program: All nine Rangers who competed in Alvin will return next season, and that has them excited about the future.

"The discussion on the way home was that next year starts Monday," Fletcher said. "We have high hopes and high expectations as we go into 2011. This year we just wanted to do the best we could and learn from the experience."

Rudder seems to have accomplished that and a little more.

As a transplanted program that came over from Bryan, the Rangers are on their way to continuing what the Vikings started. Bryan won the last two state titles and six since 1996. With a program currently 25-gymnasts strong and packing a fourth-place showing at state, Fletcher has his transplant in the ground and growing.

And he's awfully happy about the nine guys who did the planting at this year's big meet.

"I'm as pleased with this group as any team that won a state title," Fletcher said.