December 16, 2019 at 1:30 p.m.
Hodag gymnasts finish fifth at Snowflake Invite
Hodag gymnasts finish fifth at Snowflake Invite
The Hodags scored a 112.275, up roughly a half point from their opening meet a week prior in Medford. That was good enough for second-best again among the GNC Small division schools in attendance.
"Really the girls are just giving it all they can, and it's still early. It's only our second meet," coach Heather Sturtevant said afterward. "The girls are all still being super supportive of each other. There were definitely less jitters today than last week. I think the girls are starting to find their stride a little bit more."
Rhinelander had the fifth-best score in all four events. Their best total of the day was a 31.375 to begin the competition on the floor exercise.
Junior Lilli Bishop scored the team's best individual finish of the day, 10th place, with an 8.3 on the event, helping her to a 12th-place finish in the individual all-around (29.675).
"We had our best floor - huge improvement already from last week," Sturtevant said. "With Lilli getting a personal best of an 8.3 on floor, having this only be our second meet of the season, I just only see us continuing to improve.
"The girls were just more solid. They got their connections. A lot of the extra movements to land something, they were taking more of those out and got more of their connections than they did last week."
Rhinelander scored 30.3 on vault, 26.8 on balance beam and 23.8 on uneven bars. Though the Hodags had only three falls as a team on balance beam, Sturtevant said the composition of the team's routines on both beam and uneven bars hindered their scores.
"We had some real nice conversations with the judges just looking (at how to improve)," Sturtevant said. "Yeah, the girls, they didn't fall but we really need to up our composition. We really got hit more with that this time, so the girls were asking what different combinations they could do to up their starting values."
Bishop also had Rhinelander's best score on bars (6.9) as she tied for 19th. Autumn Shafer had the team's best score on vault (25th, 7.8) as she placed 15th in the all-around (28.435). Bridget Koser led the team with a 15th-place finish on balance beam (6.95).
"We had some girls throwing a few new things today. We'll be able to clean those things up more," Sturtevant said.
Marshfield, from the GNC Large, won the meet with a score of 132.95 points, followed by GNC Small favorite Medford (128.925). Ashland (123.525), Antigo (122.45) and Rhinelander rounded out the top five. The Hodags beat fellow GNC Small schools Mosinee (102.225) and Chequamegon (100.4).
Marshfield's Gracie Holland won three of the four events, place second on the other and took the all-around with a score of 37.05. Medford's Brooklyn Bilz (34.275) was second and Washburn's Lakyn Sonday finished third (34.05).
Up next, Rhinelander will travel to Chequamegon on Thursday for a GNC Small dual meet. The meet was originally scheduled for Dec. 9 but was postponed due to snow.
"It will be nice to have Chequamegon (Thursday). Then we have a couple of weeks before we compete again so we can really work on some new skills, some things we didn't work in today," Sturtevant said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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