Three Becker gymnasts competed at the MSHSL Class A State Tournament last weekend at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul and represented themselves, their team and entire community with pride.

“Overall, we couldn’t have been prouder of our trio of state performers,” Coach Kayla Kalinowski said. “We loved seeing Senior Riley Norberg close out her high school career at the state meet and look forward to seeing our Sophomores work hard this off-season.”

Senior Riley Norberg was the highest finisher with an eighth place finish on the vault. 

“She nailed a beautiful layout tsuk for a 9.5,” Kalinowski said. “Riley had been working so hard all season to perfect this vault and it was so exciting to see her hit it at the state meet in her final vault ever of her high school career!”  

Norberg also competed on the balance beam and had an unfortunate fall on her back handspring series to score an 8.85. 

“Without the fall, Riley would have been right up there with the top gymnasts contending for a medal,” Kalinowski said.

Sophomore Lauren Woelfel hit a clean beam set to finish in 11th place with a 9.125. “Lauren performed a very calm and confident routine and showed no signs of being a rookie to the state meet,” Kalinowski said. “We look forward to Lauren building on that performance and returning to the state meet in the future.”

The final Bulldog competition was Sophomore Emma Hennessey, who participated on the uneven bars.  

“Emma overcame the most adversity at the state meet and showed how much she has grown as a gymnast and leader this season,” Kalinowski said.   

According to the coach, during the uneven bar warm-up time, Emma’s grip ripped. “While this may seem like nothing to most people, grips take weeks to break in to feel comfortable and make you confident with your swing on bars,” Kalinowski said.  “Emma tried using one of her old pairs only to realize she just wasn’t comfortable in them to complete her routine.”

With no time left in the warm up rotation, Hennessey had to make a decision on what she was going to do for competition.  That’s where an assist from the Big Lake Hornets came in handy.

“Luckily, a gymnast from Big Lake realized that she had grips very similar to Emma’s and wasn’t using them,” Kalinowski said. “Emma had two warm up turns during the three minute touch to even try the grips and ended up hitting a beautiful routine in the meet to score an 8.65 and a 29th place finish.”

Overall, it was an extremely successful overall for Kalinowski and her team.

“We hope to return again next year with some more teammates on the state competition floor,” the coach said.