Hodag gymnasts alter lineup, take 6th in Marshfield

The Rhinelander High School gymnastics team switched some things up Saturday, Feb. 7 as it took sixth in an eight-team meet in Marshfield.

The Hodags posted a season-low score of 111.825 points. Coach Kristina Aschenbrenner said that was partly by design as she used the meet to provide an opportunity to give some different athletes a shot at the varsity lineup.

“We had a lot of JV athletes on the varsity today, but that gave us a way to kind of compare apples to apples and see what JVs really scored well and who might be that fifth spot on the varsity at conference or sectionals if we need them,” she said.

Despite a couple of hiccups, junior Emeline Hintz led the Hodags in three of the four events and scored a 10th place finish in the individual all-around (32.125). Hintz had 10th-place showings on both balance beam (8.0) and vault (8.25), and was 14th on both floor exercise (8.225) and uneven bars (7.65). Aschenbrenner said falls on beam and floor cost Hintz a chance to break into the 33s in the all-around for the first time in her career.

“Her bars were as good. She probably did a personal best on that, and vault was just a consistent vault that she’s thrown. Scores were a little lower on vault than normal,” she said. “For having two major mistakes, which would add a whole point to her score, (there’s) room for improvement for her.”

Alexis Smith was the only other Hodag to compete in the all-around on varsity, taking 19th with a 29.05. She had the team’s top score on floor exercise (12th, 8.35) and came away with an 8.0 on vault.

“Alexis competed a different vault on varsity today than she normally does, had a couple errors in it, so some things to work on, but she’d never thrown it. So that’s something to see at our next meet, if she can improve that,” coach Aschenbrenner noted.

The Hodags had Olivia Ruetz and June Chiamulera compete in three events each on varsity, Lexi Skubal and Sam Aschenbrenner compete in two and Piper Schweiger and Koda Kondell get one event each. To make room in the lineup, the Hodags had sophomore Addison Fish compete in the all-around on JV. She finished second there with a score of 30.0, highlighted by a runner-up finish on vault (8.2).

“Addison just continues to just be consistent and she ended up placing today, so that was phenomenal,” coach Aschenbrenner noted. “As far as our JVs that stepped up I think Olivia had a beautiful floor routine. June had a mistake on floor, so that kind of affected her score, but then on vault it will be hard. We had a lot of good vaults today. Bars, we had some girls trying, some new skills, so all of our bar scores were lower today, but this was the meet to try something new and we did that.”

Marshfield won the meet with a score of 136.857. Waupun, one of Rhinelander’s sectional opponents, was fourth with a 125.475. According to scoring database ScoreFlippers, Waupun has moved into first in season average among teams in Rhinelander’s sectional with an average score of 124.158. Valders is now second (122.867), fractions of a point ahead of Rhinelander (122.85) with Kaukauna lurking in fourth (121.808). The top two teams at the sectional meet Feb. 27 in Antigo will qualify for state. 

The Hodags closed out the GNC Small dual season at home against Mosinee on Thursday that concluded after press time for today’s edition and will travel to Ashland for an invite on Saturday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].