December 11, 2017 at 2:07 p.m.
Hodags step up at Snowflake Invite
RHS gymnasts record seven personal bests in fifth-place finish
Hodags step up at Snowflake Invite
The Hodags put up a score of 119.3 points and finished fifth in the 10-team Snowflake Invitational Saturday at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.
Saturday brought a mix of highs and lows for Rhinelander. The good news, the Hodags recorded seven personal bests on the day and were easily the best of the Great Northern Conference Small division teams in the field. The bad news, there were a number of miscues - especially on balance beam - and the team is still looking up at sectional powers Ashland and Antigo, both of whom were at Saturday's meet.
"We do have a lot of room to grow," RHS gymnastics co-coach April Denis said. "The girls know exactly what they need to do and I think they're excited to get back to fixing those mistakes that they did. It's only the second meet of the season so I'm just extremely proud of them. They're doing more than what we expected them to do at the start of the season."
Two of Rhinelander's top returning gymnasts had big days Saturday. Senior Stephanie Kuester and junior Raven Sturtevant tied for third place on the uneven bars and finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in the individual all-around.
Both gymnasts had personal-best scores of 8.05 on the uneven bars. Rhinelander, as a team, scored 29.075 in the event - the best mark it has had since Denis and fellow co-coach Heather Sturtevant started working with the team five season ago.
"We haven't seen 8s on the bars in almost five years, since Alyssa Ellis was here. Last weekend Steph got an 8 (at Wisconsin Rapids) and this weekend Raven and Stephanie both pulling in an 8 on bars, that's absolutely huge," Denis said. "Steph added her layout flyaway, added her double uprise, nice and clean. Raven took a few things out and added an uprise she learned this week. She got her handstand flyaway, her layout flyaway, and she was just cleaner. Her connections were better."
Kuester was also ninth on the floor exercise (8.325) and 10th on the vault (8.3) as she finished with an all-around total of 31.825. Sturtevant tied for eighth on vault (8.35) and finished with a personal-best all-around score of 31.2.
"They both did very well on vault," Denis said. "I think that was Raven's personal best on vault. She was nice and tight. She's been working very hard on that. Steph, with her floor routine, that's another 8 for her there. I think we're on a good roll right now."
Freshman Bridget Koser recorded a pair of personal best in the meet, scoring a 7.55 on vault and a 7.9 on the floor exercise.
"Bridget's been working really hard. She tried a new move today. She's a beautiful performer. You can tell she loves to dance and loves to perform," Denis said. "Everything just came together. She got her jumps, connections. There's still room for improvement. We've got a lot of work to do with her, but a 7.9 at this big meet, it was exciting. She was so excited and I think it's going to start feeding off. She's going to want to do more and more."
On the other hand Rhinelander struggled on balance beam, totaling 10 falls between its five gymnasts, at a deduction of a half-point per fall. Sturtevant in 12th at 7.5 with a no-fall routine was Rhinelander's best mark in the event.
"Beam, we struggled a little bit. We had a lot of falls. The girls know exactly what they need to work on. A lot of it was nerves, I suppose," Denis said.
Ashland won the meet with a score of 131.55, followed by Marshfield and the Superior 7 co-op from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Antigo was fourth, only 2.5 points ahead of the Hodags.
"Antigo's a very good team. That's kind of been in the back of our mind all the time and I think we might be able to (catch them)," Denis said, knowing that Antigo may be the team that Rhinelander will need to beat come season's end to earn a trip to the state gymnastics meet. "It'd be nice to score a little higher than them. We were only 2.5 points behind Antigo. We had a lot of falls, a lot of things that would have put our score right over the top of that."
The Hodags open GNC Small play against Mosinee on Tuesday knowing that they are the early season favorites for the conference title. All five Small Division schools were at Saturday meet and Rhinelander was easily the best of the bunch. Medford was seventh with a 112.85, followed by Lakeland (107.325), Mosinee (105.175) and Chequamegon (91.375).
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.