“Overall we had a respectable showing,” said Head Coach Jen Harmoning.  

 

The Bulldog gymnastics team traveled to Big Lake last Saturday morning to compete in the annual Big Lake Tropical Twist Invitational with eight teams competing.

 

Becker finished second by .8 points to Sartell and were .2 points ahead of the Hornets.

 

Becker began their day on floor, where they had two falls.

 

“It’s uncharacteristic but not surprising because we had made a couple of adjustments to tumbling passes over the holiday break,” said Harmoning.

 

Miranda O'Brien and Kassidy Severson both turned in good solid performances, placing second and sixth respectively.

 

At vault,  Harmoning said all five Bulldog girls performed at least one good vault.  

 

“All five of our varsity gymnasts placed in the top ten, with O'Brien claiming first and Lindsay Olsen taking third,” she said.

 

“We took a lot of chances on our third event — bars — because we have been working really hard to add some release moves to the bar routines,” said the head coach.  “Our scores were not the best we can get because we have a lot of execution errors that need to be cleaned up. 

 

Harmoning said she was very happy after bars because all her girls who tried new release moves were successful in making their routines.  

 

Kylee Pudas was Becker’s top scorer in eighth place.

 

“We finished the day on beam with mostly success but also some costly errors,” said Harmoning. “We had three nicely stuck beam routines.  Unfortunately, we did not receive credit for some of the things we did and scores ended up being lower than we expected.”  

 

The girls competing had two routines with two falls each, which meant Harmoning’s squad had to count one of those routines in their team score.  

 

O'Brien took first place, Olsen placed sixth and Pudas finished 10th.

 

O'Brien took second place in the all-around behind Sartell's Abby Weber.  Olsen placed sixth and Haley Hubbard took 10th.

 

“On both beam and floor, we had to count routines with falls, so that is what really made the difference in our second place team placement,” said Harmoning.  “We also were unable to compete some of our best gymnasts on vault, bars and beam, so getting those routines back into the line-up will be key.”  

 

Harmoning said she was impressed with the way the Big Lake and Sartell teams looked and she thinks Becker’s section tournament will be another exciting nail-biter at the end of the season.

 

“We are going to keep working hard and getting better week by week,” she said.

 

The girls compete today (Saturday) at Lakeville North at 9 a.m. then head to Howard Lake-Waverly Friday for a 6 p.m. start.