By Bruce Karnick

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As the Hastings Raiders Gymnasts celebrate their senior night, they know it is a bittersweet celebration. They have been very thankful and lucky to have access to the Gymnasium at the Hastings Armory, home of the Hastings branch of the Minnesota National Guard. This year, due to an upcoming training session the National Guard needs to prepare for, that luck has run out.

Head Coach Jeanne Kasel explained, “They need to use it to space their equipment out and get ready. They have, it’s not a deployment, it’s a training mission that they’re going on this summer.”

That means the Raiders needed to break down their gym, load it on to a truck, and move it. But where? Gymnastics equipment is not only heavy, but also large and requires a lot of space. The vault run was actually too long for the gym at the Armory, so it extended into a hallway. The height needed over the balance beam and the uneven bars is similar to that of a basketball gym, maybe slightly less, so the needed space is should not be overly cost prohibitive.

Kasel will not come out and say it because she is thankful to have a place to teach her girls gymnastics, but the stress of having to move the equipment, because her team does not have a permanent place that is part of the school, appears to weigh on her. The disappointment of having to move midseason is written on her face as she explained the process of packing, loading and finding a new home. Thankfully, a gym at the middle school was made available and they can finish the next month of practice there.

But what about a more permanent situation? Sure, the Armory gym works if there is no need for the military to use the space, but why put a team in a position it can get kicked out of its home at any time? Why are the gymnasts not at the High School? In looking for answers to these questions, an email was sent to Athletic Director Trent Hanson.

“I cannot comment specifically on the criteria or decision making about gymnastics when the current HHS building was constructed 20 years ago. I was a teacher and coach at HHS at that time but wasn’t an administrator or otherwise part of any planning discussions or committees that would have impacted gymnastics,” penned Hanson.

“I do know that for many years the home of HHS gymnastics was the gymnastics center located in south Hastings. It was a privately owned, but gymnastics-specific facility, that our school district rented each year for HHS gymnastics. When that business closed, so did the opportunity to continue to train and compete there – and the district leadership identified the National Guard Armory as the next best option available. The Armory has been a great partner for almost ten years,” continued Hanson.

The Armory is still planning on being a partner for the Gymnastics team in the future, but the primary role of the Armory is for military use, and that, like it did this year, will trump the high schools need for the space. That means, the team could lose its space at any time.

When asked about expanding the field house to include a gymnastics room at the school, Hanson had this to say. “There was discussion at the time of last bond referendum a few years ago about adding on to the west of the HHS athletics fieldhouse – to add a gymnastics/all-purpose space as well as some storage, meeting and training spaces. However, that option never made it past initial discussions, mostly because of the high cost (in the $ millions to add) and the fact that other items across the district were higher on the project priority list.”

The good news is, the school has explored bringing the gymnastics team back to the school property, the problem is, with all the various apparatuses used in gymnastics, that space is very limited for other uses. Which is where having the private business partnership with the Hastings Gymnastics Center was a benefit for both the school and the community. When that was available, it makes sense to rent that space as needed and was a great use of school funds. With it no longer available, other options need to be looked at. Unfortunately, it might take a large donation to kick start a dedicated space for gymnastics on school property.

How did senior night go?

Senior Annika Tverberg explains. “It’s the last home meet for us. So, it’s the last time we’re going to be in the armory. I always have a great time here and on this team, so it’s definitely sad but, it’s like, life moves on and it’s definitely something I’m glad I was a part of.”

Tverberg then gave a small peek at the training aspect for the gymnasts during COVID.

“You’re definitely sore at the end of the day, if you push yourself through the whole practice, you typically will do all four events. If not, then you do three of the four events depending on how long we’re here. Depending on the day, it depends on what events will do. But you’re definitely hitting those events hard and fastest with COVID here where we are sort of short on time. We got to get in and get out and get our stuff done. So, we’re definitely working hard this year,” added Tverberg.

Tverberg performed well on her favorite event, the beam. She had one instance that most people would have simply bailed on, but not her. She pulled out all the tricks when she lost her balance to stay on the beam. The onlooking judges and coaches were even impressed with the save.

Sophomore Ava Mamer stood out from the crowd with her performances, especially on the floor. Her high energy was fun to watch and her smile was engaging, even with no fans allowed. Mamer also did well on her favorite event, the uneven bars, scoring her highest score of the season.

“I think it was 7.625, but I am not sure,” laughed Mamer. “I think bars are my favorite because it’s challenging. You just really have to stay tight and you have to execute your skills correctly or else they won’t go as planned.”

Her score was indeed 7.625 on the bars giving her first place. Mamer also took first place on beam with 8.175, floor with 8.6 and overall, with 32.8.

How did the varsity team do? “We did really good tonight,” Mamer excitedly proclaimed. “We got our highest team score of the year.”

The team not only grabbed their highest score of the year, but also beat their highest score from last season for the second time this year.

Big contributors to the varsity team score along with Mamer were Anna Gerlach who took first on vault with 8.65 and Nicole McGraw in second with 8.525. McGraw took second behind Mamer on bars with 7.25 and Kyra Bartholomew grabbed second on floor with 8.4.

All Around, Mamer was first with 32.8, McGraw was fourth with 31.15 and Bartholomew fifth with 29.725.

Coach Kasel added, “Each week a little bit better. We’ve got injuries we’re dealing with now, a couple of the girls, but they’re fighting through it. We had one last night that kind of put us back. That was a downer for the girls she’s an all-rounder. So that affected our score tonight.”

Unfortunately, even with their highest varsity team score of the year, the Raiders did fall to Simley by 1.5 points. The final score, Hastings 123.25, Simley 125.075 “We have struggled the past couple weeks on beam, but to the girls credit they have been putting more difficult skills into all their routines on every event and this can be challenging to achieve with only a couple days between our meets and at this point in the season, not to mention most of them start to struggle with serious aches and pains,” said Coach Kasel.

The JV Team has done very well with their team scores progressively improving weekly too. The final of this meet for JV was Simley 112.6, Hastings 102.7.

Individual top scorers Vault Madi Kennedy in first with 8.05 and Kora Seleski in second with 8.0, bars Seleski was second with 6.05, beam Seleski was second with 7.4 and Jade Lindgren with 6.9, floor was Seleski with 7.6.

All Around Seleski was first with 29.05 Hastings is fortunate this year. While most schools struggle to fill their JV rosters, Hastings is having a hard time selecting which JV girls will perform for each event because of event limits.

“[it is] very exciting to watch these girls work so hard each week to achieve the necessary requirements to be able to complete on each event. Many of our JV girls come to us with some or little gymnastics background,” explained Coach Kasel.

Due to COVID restrictions and the small size of the gym at the Armory, fans have not been allowed in to meets, but thankfully, HCTV has been helping by streaming some of the gymnastics meets on social media and then storing them on their YouTube channel, so if you want to go back and watch some of this season’s performances, some are still available.

Sophomore Ava Mamer performs her floor routine to the cheers of her teammates during the Raiders close loss against Simley at this year’s final home meet at the Hastings Armory. Photo by Bruce Karnick

Blake Beissel of the Raiders works to pin his Irondale opponent on Thursday, February 25th. Beissel won the match 16-1, giving the Raiders the early lead. Photo by Bruce Karnick