The Bulldog girls gymnastics team  took 14th place out of 16 teams last Saturday at Lakeville North and scored a 138.6 — their second best score of the season. This, after still missing some key varsity routines from their line-up due to nagging injuries.  

 

The meet consisted of 12 class AA schools, all of them currently ranked in the top 15 for class AA, and four class A schools who placed first, second, third and fourth at last year's state tournament.  

 

“It was an amazing meet to be a part of, and watching this year's #1 ranked team, Detroit Lakes, was a lot of fun,” said Head Coach Jen Harmoning.  

 

Detroit Lakes won the meet scoring 151.6 points.

 

Becker started their day on beam.  Lindsay Olsen did a nice routine to earn a season-high score of 8.9.  

 

Another highlight for the team was having Katie Wilke back into the line-up for the first time this season.

 

“We've had to adjust some of her skills because she is putting too much pressure on her injured wrist, but she did a nice routine with one fall,” said Harmoning.  “It wasn't the complete start we were hoping for, though, because we had to count four falls in our team total.”

 

Floor was Becker’s second event and Miranda O'Brien (9.1), Olsen (8.95) and Kassidy Severson (8.9) all turned in good, solid performances.  

 

“Overall, it wasn't too bad of an event for us, but we did still had to count another fall there,” said the head coach.

 

On vault, the Bulldogs went the safe route and decided not to compete some of the more advanced vaults they've been working on.  All five gymnasts performed well, though, so Harmoning and her crew felt really good about what they'd done on that event.  

 

O'Brien was the only Becker gymnast to break into the top 10 with her 9.4 score. It earned her ninth place on the event.  Olsen was close with her 9.3 contribution.

 

The girls finished the day on bars with a couple of ragged areas but overall they had fairly solid routines.  The highlight of the exercise came for Becker when Aubree Lahr competed with her new, difficult dismount and landed it successfully.

 

The Bulldogs have two dual meets coming up in the next week that Harmoning is  hoping her girls can use as the final test, working some new skills in that they've been working on all season.  

 

“We will then have to make some decisions about which skills can be ready to compete consistently in our big pressure meets coming up,” Harmoning said.  “The number one goal we have, however, is to get everyone stronger and more competitively prepared.  The team has been working hard and they are getting ready to start making a strong push for the last phase of the season, and I'm very excited to see what will come.”