Bryan's gymnasts called it the Final Voyage.

While the journey ended in a familiar place with the Vikings winning their sixth team state championship, the 2009 season was unlike any that came before or any to come. Bryan's boys captured the state title in the last season of Viking gymnastics, a transition year in which their proud program was closing down for a move to Rudder High School.

The Vikings attended classes at Bryan, then during seventh period bused to the new gymnastics facility at Rudder to practice. J.T. Fletcher, who had coached and taught silver and blue at Bryan throughout his career, moved into a sea of green as a teacher at Rudder while he coached the Vikings for a final season.

"It's kind of like they threw something at us and we got past it," said sophomore Enoch Rodriguez, who captured the prestigious all-around championship at state. "We took it as another challenge and we overcame it. It was cool that we had to make this work, managed our schedules and won again."

Bryan won the 43rd Texas High School State Gymnastics Championships last month in Garland with what may have been the most dominating performance in program history. Led by Rodriguez and seniors Alex Reyes and Stefan Quartemont, the Vikings scored 343.25 points and beat second-place Garland Lakeview Centennial by nearly eight points, a substantial margin.

The Vikings began the season with less lofty goals. With two huge holes to fill in the lineup and the uncertainty surrounding gymnastics' move to Rudder, Rodriguez said the Vikings figured that they probably could finish in the top five at state.

Fletcher's team built confidence through the season and began to think seriously about back-to-back state championships when their district scores were the highest in Texas.

"With the moving and everything, I wasn't too sure how our season was going to go," Reyes said. "I was real upset about us moving from Bryan High. It was horrible at first, coming over here to practice."

The move from Bryan to Rudder, like a good floor exercise routine, had several twists and turns. The school district originally planned for a new facility at Bryan High. After deciding to build at the new Rudder campus, BISD officials wanted to let Fletcher coach a combined team from both schools. However, that idea was torpedoed by the coaches association at its summer meeting.

Bryan wound up with a seven-man team that included Grayson Tedrick, Cody Palasota, Jesse Martinez and Michael Gonzalez. The district's other gymnasts competed for Rudder.

Although Fletcher didn't know it at first, his team had the perfect temperament to deal with a program in flux.

"This is the most relaxed group of boys I've ever had," Fletcher said. "I would try to get them fired up and create some intensity, but they were always very low-key. There were times I would worry that they didn't want it, that they weren't hungry enough.

"They were very business-like. [After good performances, there were] hand-shakes and high-fives, but no whooping and hollering until the end, when we started to realize we were going to win it."

Fletcher used the final year of Bryan's program for motivation late in the season, but the Vikings felt that push all season.

"I knew this was the last year for Bryan gymnastics," Quartemont said. "I didn't want to let the school down. I didn't want to let my teammates down. I didn't want to let Coach Fletcher down most of all.

"Every time you got up on an event you were thinking that you wanted to win state for yourself and win it for coach, because he wants it a lot. Plus, you want to win for your teammates and for Bryan. The whole time you're thinking about that, it's hard to focus on gymnastics and that at the same time. Your mind is going a million miles an hour."

Bryan took a small, but meaningful, lead of 0.55 points over Odessa Permian after the opening day's compulsory rounds. The Vikings surged to the title during the optional competition, when Reyes and Quartemont produced the day's top scores and Rodriguez padded his total from a great set of compulsory performances.

The margin of victory surprised Fletcher, who expected a tight race with Permian, Humble and Centennial.

"We trained for it to be a struggle," Reyes said. "When we got there we did our job, and it just proved that hard work does pay off."

The Vikings became the first Bryan team with individual championships in five of the seven events. The program's previous best was three individual golds in 1996.

Rodriguez and Quartemont both won two individual titles. Rodriguez was the state champion on the pommel horse, giving his family individual gold for the second consecutive season after his brother Isaac won last year. Rodriguez also became the third all-around champion in Bryan history. Quartemont ruled the skies, winning on the rings and the horizontal bar.

Reyes claimed gold on the parallel bars, the first Viking to win that event since Joel Dixon in 1988.

The Vikings went out in grand style, leaving Fletcher with a snapshot to savor.

"It was in the van coming home," Fletcher said, when asked for a special memory. "We wanted to go out with a bang, and one of the boys said we went out with a sonic boom."

GOING OUT IN STYLE

Bryan's state team title years: 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2008, 2009.

Top teams: 1. Bryan, 343.25; 2. Centennial, 335.85; 3. Kingwood, 333.375; 4. Permian, 333.275.

Individual state champions: Enoch Rodriguez, all-around, pommel horse; Stefan Quartemont, rings, high bar; Alex Reyes, parallel bars.

Looking ahead: In the future, all Bryan ISD gymnasts will attend Rudder.