Thursday, the Becker Bulldog gymnastics team hosted Maple Lake Thursday evening in their first Granite Ridge Conference meet of the season.

 

 

“Our preparation leading up to this meet was not as strong as I would have liked,” said Head Coach Jen Harmoning. “But the girls competed well in spite of the distractions.”

 

 

Vault was a bit “up-and-down”, according to Harmoning with lots of hits and lots of misses.  

 

“This is a strong event for us where we really need to capitalize on our high start values,” she said. “But we just gave too much away with wayward landings.”

 

 

Harmoning said she was very pleased with the girls' bar routines but would like to see the girls work on cleaning up the execution of their skills. 

 

“It was pretty solid for us.  I am looking forward to seeing what we can achieve on this event later on in the season.”

 

 

“We had too many falls on beam and some of the routines that didn't have falls received scores that were very low,” Harmoning said.  “I am going to be looking closely at each routine to try to figure out why we're not capitalizing here.”  

 

Harmoning says she has a strong line-up on beam that should be pushing 36 points.  

 

“Some things may need to be reevaluated,” she said.

 

 

Some of the Bulldogs’ floor routines Thursday were the best of the season although the team  had a couple of uncharacteristic falls.  Harmoning is not too concerned since it's still very early in the season and she says these things are bound to happen.  

 

“I'm impressed with how far the girls have come with their stamina for this event already,” she said.  “It's not easy going all out for 1-1/2 minutes straight, but they make it look easy.  We're really proud of our floor routines.”  

 

Harmoning’s biggest concern is the landing deductions. She says the girls just need to learn how to control their adrenaline and channel it into the right place.

 

Hannah Schmidt and Lindsay Olsen competed in the all-around and Schmidt scored a team-high 34.525 while Olsen had a 33.775. Schmidt got her total by garnering an 8.8 on vault, an 8.45 on bars, an 8.225 on beam and an impressive 9.05 on floor. Olsen achieved her score by getting a superb 9.1 on vault, an 8.25 on bars, an 8.05 on beam and an 8.375 on floor.

 

Other Bulldogs scores were Miranda O’Brien with a top-notch score of 9.275 on vault, an 8.4 on beam and an 8.9 on floor; Kassidy Severson had an 8.75 on vault; Marlee Louden had a 7.975 on bars, Lexi Reichle had an 8.725 on beam, Haley Olsen had an 8.55 on bars and Montanna Edling had an 8.175 on floor.

 

 

Saturday, the Bulldogs hosted an eight-team invitational and took home the third place prize.

 

“We competed fairly well,” said Harmoning. “But we weren't as sharp as the previous meet.  It was nice to go up against Melrose and Willmar, who are two of the top Class A schools at the start of this season.”  

 

Harmoning knows her young squad is not at the same level as those two teams yet, but she thinks her girls have the potential to be right up there with them at some point.

 

“We need to learn to perform with a lot more polish and poise,” she said.  “Our skills are right up there with them, but we have a long way to go in making it all look really pretty.  We will keep working at it and little by little things will start coming together.”

 

It was a very busy competition for the host team as they competed two varsity and two junior varsity teams.  Some of that busy-ness probably caused Harmoning’s team to lose focus at times.  

“It was really great that we were able to get all our kids out there to compete,” she said.

 

Hannah Schmidt finished with a team-high score of 34.55 where she scored a nine on vault, a 7.95 on uneven bars, an 8.5 on beam and a 9.1 on floor. 

 

Lindsay Olsen had a combined score of 34.05 where she scored an 8.8 on vault, 8.2 on bars, 8.05 on beam and a nine on floor. Haley Hubbard had a combined score of 33.1 with an 8.7 on vault, a 7.4 on bars, an 8.55 on beam and an 8.45 on floor.

 

Other scorers were M. O’Brien with a 9.4 on vault, a 7.75 on beam and an 8.9 on floor; Louden had an 8.25 on bars; Severson had an 8.5 on vault, Reichle had an 8.25 on beam, H. Olsen had an 8.2 on bars and Edling had an 8.5 on floor.

 

 

Saturday, the Bulldogs will travel to Annandale and are looking for a top finish when they hit the facility at 11:30 a.m. They then travel to Perham  Tuesday. 

 

“It will be a tough battle for us on the road, but a good test of our competitive level,” Harmoning said.