After a long season, the girls’ synchro team won the first place title at sections May 14 and 16, continuing their undefeated sections title.

Head coach Linda Gust said she was satisfied with the outcome of the meet and all the hard work put in by the team to make it possible.

“The girls put in a great deal of hard work both mentally and physically. Andwe have a pretty good process in place now where we combine what they do in the pool with what we do outside in strength and conditioning,” Gust said.

Gust wasn’t the only one who was pleased with the sections results. Sophomore Maggie Bahnson said she was very proud of the team’s win.

“It was very exciting, since we lost so many strong seniors last year to come back from that and still win shows how much we have grown individually and as a team,” Bahnson said.

According to Gust, the top four in each event move onto state and these scores are determined by figures and routines.

“For sections, they combine figure scores with routine scores so both are equally important, so we the coaches work really hard on making both of those things equal,” Gust said.

St. Louis Park synchro team has never lost sections and according to Bahnson this year SLP synchro won by 50 points.

“It is always really exciting to beat Edina because it’s the only sport we can do that in, and it’s our 20th year in a row,”  Bahnson said. “Especially since we come from a school with not nearly as nice as a pool, and at SLP we write all of our routines by ourselves but we still are able to beat them every year.”

For coach Gust, this year was harder to predict the outcome of the meet than past years.

“We’re no longer in the same conference as Edina, so we didn’t know what to expect from them,” Gust said.  “We try to prepare the girls to do the best job and not worry so much about other teams because in the long run if our routines do the best that they can, then it’s OK.”