Despite experiencing difficulties on beam routines, sophomore Sophia Romero said the gymnastics team was able to pull through the mistakes and place first.

“We struggled on beam, there were a few falls that could have been prevented and that took a toll on the rest of the meet,” Romero said. “It was our first invitational win this year, we really came together as a team this meet and pushed through it.

Junior Eden Swartz said the team put a lot of effort into keeping a good attitude.

“We used our energy cheering on our team and staying positive knowing that we had a chance at winning the meet to finish strong,” Swartz said. 

According to coach Dawn Thielen, the gymnasts always motivate their teammates even when they aren’t performing well.

“The ability to pull themselves through if they are having a rough meet and the fact that this team is very good at supporting each other and cheering each other on always helps us,” Thielen said.

Romero said the team will isolate their current issues and work to improve them to prepare for future meets.

“Over the next two weeks we are going to have a lot of still days where we are going to try and upgrade our current routines and will ultimately lead to higher scores and hopefully higher totals,” Romero said.

According to Swartz, the coaching style has really benefited the team this year.

“Our coaches are giving us a lot of freedom to practice what we want and are working their hardest to help us get new skills,” Swartz said. “They are letting us work for anything we think we can get and is attainable to us. A lot of the girls are working on skills they never thought they could do.”

Thielen said the girls will perform their routines in front of the whole team at practice to work on building up confidence during the girls’ routines. 

“(The team needs to work on) having the confidence in themselves so they can pull it out,” Thielen said. “We are going to do a couple of mock meets in our home gym to put them in the spotlight and work on our connection and cleaning it up as best we can, focusing on our performance technique drills.”

The next meet will take place 11 a.m. Jan. 4 at Park Center High School.