Hodag gymnasts take 5th in home debut

The Rhinelander High School gymnastics team showed signs of improvement on Saturday in the opening meet of the 2023-24 season.

The Hodags were in the middle of the pack among GNC Small teams and finished fifth overall in the seven-team Snowflake Invite at the YMCA of the Northwoods.

A Rhinelander squad that had five freshmen and one junior in the starting lineup on Saturday finished the meet with 104.225 points and topped GNC Small rivals Mosinee and Lakeland. 

“We did phenomenal. For our first meet, the girls exceeded our expectations and our goals. They did great,” Hodag coach Kristina Aschenbrenner said. “We came in fifth, which is great with all the freshmen that we have. They really stepped up for their first meet. We made a lot of our skills that we’ve been working on. We’re really excited to keep building on those.”

Podium finishes have been tough to come by for the Hodags, who struggled to field a complete lineup last year, but the team got two of them right out of the gate on Saturday. Freshman Alexis Smith tied for third-best score on the vault with a score of 8.2 and fellow freshman Karly Gillingham was not far behind, tying for the sixth-highest score with an 8.1. 

Due to meet format, which counted gymnasts who tied with one position, Smith and Gillingham were awarded second and fourth on the podium. Those were the two best performances for the Hodags on the day. 

“We have a lot of girls that can hit the podium, I know they can,” coach Aschenbrenner said. “Karly and Alexis definitely brought it and showed that they are great vaulters and deserve to be up there competing with schools that are throwing much more difficult vaults. It just shows the power and the clean-ness and the ability to really hit their vaults.”

    Rhinelander’s Karly Gillingham dismounts from the balance beam during the Snowflake Invitational gymnastics meet at the YMCA of the Northwoods Saturday, Dec. 9. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Their performances were part of a debut-filled day for the Hodags. Freshman Samantha Aschenbrenner led the Hodags in two events and placed 12th in the individual all-around (26.425), two-tenths of a point ahead of Smith, who finished 13th. Gillingham was another two-tenths back as she took 15th, 

Gillingham led the Hodags with a 17th-place finish and a score of 7.65 on the floor exercise. Samantha Aschenbrenner led the team both on balance beam (21st, 6.6) and uneven bars (19th, 5.925). 

Junior Wendy Fronk, the lone returning gymnast for the Hodags, finished 16th in the all-around (25.25), paced by a 20th-place effort on the vault (7.4). 

Two more freshmen, Lexi Skubal and Arieanna Crossman, split the final starting spot in the four events, with Skubal scoring a 24th-place performance on the beam. 

Overall, coach Aschenbrenner said the freshmen fared well in their varsity debut.

“They showed up today and I think they had fun too. I’m very excited for next week when we come back in the gym,” she said. “I think we’re going to have some motivated ladies that are going to want to really hit it hard and work on getting better.”

The Hodag freshmen were not alone in their debut on Saturday, which served to christen the YMCA of the Northwoods’ recent expansion. Aside from a few pre-meet adjustments to where the apparatus were positioned inside the multi-use facility, Saturday’s meet appeared to go off pretty seamlessly.

“We had some bugs to work out for sure, just logistic-wise, but we have such a great group of teams and coaches that all are great. We made it through and it was a fun meet,” coach Aschenbrenner said. “Big thanks to the YMCA for hosting this meet and helping with some of the arrangements. It’s been really nice to be in this facility.”

Vault was the Hodags’ best event on Saturday, from a scoring standpoint (30.8), followed by floor exercise (29.75), balance beam (25.3) and uneven bars (18.375). Rhinelander’s team total was nearly four points higher than last year’s season high of 100.35, which was set at the Snowflake.

“Bars, we had a couple of skills that are hit or miss in practice that we’ve been working on and we hit a lot of those today,” coach Aschenbrenner said. “Beam, we’re trying out some new things, some more difficult things, so a couple falls. We’ll have to work on cleaning those up. Floor, the girls really went out there and performed. We need to work a little bit on cleaning up some of our choreography and just making sure we’re getting all of our difficulty, but that’s definitely good goals going forward. Vault, all the girls did great vaults. Super happy.”

GNC Large programs Marshfield (129.7) and Medford (127.975) took home the top two spots. Ashland, Antigo, Rhinelander, Mosinee and Lakeland rounded out the field. Marshfield’s Alyvia Dietsche took the individual all-around with a total of 33.65. 

Rhinelander will be back in action Dec. 19 at the Y as it hosts Ashland in a GNC Small dual meet. 

“It will just be a good opportunity for us to try out some new skills that we get in the next two weeks and see what we can do,” coach Aschenbrenner said.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].