POULSBO — The team grew — but its training facility shrank.

The North Kitsap High School’s gymnastics team has seen its turnout numbers rise to 27 athletes from about 16 a year ago, and among the newbies are former club athletes with years of experience.

But the team’s host arena, Zero Gravity Dance Studio, had to move out of its downtown Poulsbo location and into the Agate Pass Business Park temporarily, which dropped the group down about 1,000 square feet of space in the interim.

But make no mistake about the team’s attitude this year: where there’s room, there’s a gymnast.

“I think the girls this year are more willing to learn all the events and not just one or two,” said two-year gymnast and senior Maggie Cook. “There’s also more people who have a background in gymnastics.”

Cook, a beginner a year ago, said she plans to focus on all facets of the sport this season.

“Last year, I was just getting used to all this stuff,” said Cook, who participated in the vault and bars in events last year. “But now that I have the background, I can move on and try other things.”

The majority of the athletes, like Cook, have progressed through high school. But this year’s squad includes several year-round or former year-round club gymnasts, including last year’s state participants Kai Morrow and Bremerton’s Jessica Lindberg, who competes for North as there is no team at her school.

Odds are Lindberg won’t compete all that much for NK this year, due to the large turnout of gymnasts. Only 10 athletes can compete in a given meet and on a team of 26, that means head coach Kris Goodfellow will already be hard-pressed to get as many Vikings into the fray as possible.

Morrow is North Kitsap’s lone state veteran from a year ago — sans Bremerton’s Lindberg, who competes for North’s team until tournament time — competing on the bars at the Tacoma Dome.

But the NKHS sophomore admitted that she’s getting back into gymnastics through high school events, as she quit her off-season club team. Morrow said she enjoys high school competition because “it’s more laid back and fun.”

A few of Morrow’s friends from her previous club team decided to join the squad this season and that should bolster the overall amount of team experience.

“I tried to get everyone to come out I could,” Morrow said.

One of those former club members is Whitney Glebe, who just finished up in the pool this fall on the swim team.

“I wanted to do it last year, but it didn’t work out,” Glebe said.

Glebe also mentioned she wants to compete in all four events but she knows that gymnastics, unlike swimming, will take a larger toll on her body.

“Swimming is a non-impact sport,” she said. “This is a lot more dangerous.”

Having new members that have gymnastics experience under their belts will make for greater potential in events as the season rolls on, Goodfellow said.

“Normally, we have new girls who can barely do a cartwheel,” Goodfellow said. “We have girls here that can do a back handspring already.”

The team is also very young — more than half is composed of freshmen and sophomores.

Whether having experience or just starting out, many of the athletes said the team is also a tight group of girls.

“This team gets along really well,” Cook said. “It will help because we’ll be more supportive of each other.”

The gymnastics Narrows’ League is limited to just four schools — Port Angeles, North Kitsap, Capital and Olympia. So winning the league isn’t as important a goal as taking as many individuals as possible to state, Goodfellow said.

Given the team’s facility constraints, morale is up and that can only help the group’s bid to advance girls to the district and state competitions.

“Everyone really tries their hardest at everything,” said freshman Alice Pittack.

“I want to make it to state. But we’ll need to work as hard as we can and do our best.”