Hodag gymnasts award top performers at banquet

The Rhinelander High School gymnastics team handed out more awards than it has the past few seasons Sunday during its end-of-season banquet at the YMCA of the Northwoods.

The Hodags had the same awards as in years past but, following one of the team’s best seasons in nearly a decade, there were more of those awards to go around. 

Six gymnasts earned awards for achieving scores of 8.0 or higher in an event, and three earned honors for topping 30.0 in the all-around during the banquet. It was part of a year in which the Hodags finished second in the GNC Small Division and posted its highest team score since 2018, scoring 121.65 points at the conference meet last month in Stevens Point. 

“Just the depth of the team to be able to bring in people to compete varsity and step in was amazing,” Hodag coach Kristina Aschenbrenner said. “The work ethic and the camaraderie and the support, and just the fun that the girls had was just amazing. It was just such a fun team to coach all year long. We just both — (assistant coach) April (Denis) and I — just said we were renewed in our coaching because it was such a great team.”

Three gymnasts — sophomore Alexis Smith and freshmen Emeline Hintz and Addison Fish — earned the awards for scoring better than 30.0 in the all-around at some point during the season. Hintz hit the mark twice and posted a season high of 31.4 points at the GNC Meet in Stevens Point last month. Smith hit 30 points twice, including a 30.4 in a dual meet Feb. 11 against Mosinee. Fish hit the 30 mark in the season-opening meet at Ashland Dec. 10, scoring 30.075. 

    Rhinelander’s Wendy Fronk receives the “Queen of the Beam” award, flanked by RHS gymnastics coaches Kristina Aschenbrenner, left, and April Denis, right, during the team’s end-of-season banquet at the YMCA of the Northwoods Sunday, March 9. (Submitted photo)
  

Those three, along with senior Wendy Fronk, sophomore Sam Aschenbrenner and exchange student Margherita Tibaldeschi all achieved scores of 8.0 or higher on vault at some point of the season. Smith, Aschenbrenner, Fronk and Hintz reached the 8.0 plateau on the floor exercise while Fronk had the team’s lone 8-plus performances on balance beam this season. She did it twice, including an 8.25 score in the season opener at Ashland.

Fronk was also named the team’s “Queen of the Beam.” She led the squad with six no-fall routines on balance beam this season.

Coach Aschenbrenner said the team has opted for performance-based awards over traditional awards such as most valuable and most improved, because those awards are harder to quantify.

“It’s hard in gymnastics because not everybody does the same things,” she said. “It’s not an apples to apples comparison ... All of our newbies went from  having no routines to all having full routines that they could compete with. We had Sam, who brought in new skills on three out of the four events. Emeline, who brought new skills. Wendy, as a senior coming in and improving with new skills.

“We had a lot of girls who contributed throughout the year and that was evident when we had all three of our freshman letter this year. We had our newbies all Mollie (Arneson), Olivia (Ruetz), June (Chiamulera), Brynn (Teter), they all lettered this year because they all contributed. They all competed varsity at least one meet or were alternates and some contributed to this team score.”

The Hodags went 1-2 in GNC Small duals this year before finishing second at the conference meet. Rhinelander followed that up with a fifth-place finish at sectionals in Ashland. The Hodags averaged 117.069 points in its competitions this season, its best since the 2018-19 season when the team averaged 117.075. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].