Gymnasts win dual

  The River Valley/Barneveld girls varsity gymnastics team traveled to Prairie du Chien last Monday night for their first SWC dual meet. River Valley/Barneveld narrowly beat out Prairie 126.1250 to 121.0250. Due to COVID, the teams changed their format to have less cross over on equipment between the two teams. Normally there is a warm up on all events followed by competition, with a two minute warm up prior to competition. The new format has athletes warming up and immediately competing junior varsity, followed by varsity for every event. River Valley/Barneveld head coach Julie Kuhse said, “The meet doesn’t really take much longer, but the judges are there longer, sitting through the warm up periods.” River Valley/Barneveld started the meet on the uneven bars. “Allison Williams started us out on bars, hitting all her skills,” said Kuhse. “Allison had personal bests on all events, and performed a new vault this meet.  Katie Forseth also hit a personal best on bars. We still have some stops and extra we are still working on so I anticipate our team bar score to continue to rise.” Individual results for the uneven bars are: Sofia Sanftleben took second place with 7.700 points, McKenzie Kruse took third place with 7.650 points, Madison Krey tied for fourth place with Emily Noble with 6.950 points each, and Morgan Bowell took ninth place with 5.550 points.  “Next on vault, Allison Williams performed a half on vault for the first time,” said Kuhse. “We had six personal bests on vault. Extra steps cost us some points.” Individual results for the vault are: McKenzie Kruse took first place with 8.200 points, Katie Forseth took third place with 8.100, Sofia Sanftleben took fourth place with 8.050 points, Caitlin Wastlick took sixth place with 7.900 points, and Emily Noble tied for seventh place with 7.850 points.  Third round was floor. “I see so much energy from the girls,” explained Kuhse, “even if we can’t see their facial expressions. We had seven personal bests. The girls have added new skills, we just need to clean them up. The execution is not there yet.” The individual results for the floor exercise are: McKenzie Kruse took second place with 8.350 points, Sofia Sanftleben tied for third place with 8.275 points, Caitlin Wastlick took fifth place with 8.225 points, Katie Forseth took sixth place with 8.075 points, and Emily Noble took ninth place with 7.275 points.  Final round was beam. “Madison Krey was one move away from her third no fall routine,” said Kuhse. “Emily and Sofia both had no fall routines, hitting their personal bests. Caitlin Wastlick took a nasty fall in warm ups affecting her back that has taken her out of competition; we hope she recovers quickly.” The individual results for the balance beam are: Sofia Sanftleben took first place with 8.625 points, Emily Noble took third place with 8.275 points, McKenzie Kruse took fifth place with 7.600 points, Madison Krey took sixth place with 7.200 points, and Katie Forseth tied for seventh place with 7.100 points.  “The girls continue to make adjustments to their routines,” said Kuhse of the girls’ progress. “We do have some clean-up to do overall, but watching video and still pictures really helps. We have the week of January 25 to focus on that.”  Monday the girls traveled to Southwestern/Cuba City/Benton for their second conference dual. Friday they will travel to Viroqua for their varsity invitational. Monday Madison Krey and Caitlin Wastlick will be out and so some junior varsity girls will be pulled up in the ranks to fill the spots.