PREP GYMNASTICS: Svalland leads Trojan gymnasts at Tiger Invite

MARSHALL — Tara Svalland’s performance at Saturday’s Tiger Invitational was nearly the best of any gymnast there.

The Worthington sophomore finished painfully shy of taking the all-around title, finishing behind rival Nikki McNair by less than a single point.

Svalland finished with 34.825 all-around points, while McNair finished with 34.9.

Svalland was first in the parallel uneven bars with a score of 8.175, second in the vault with an 8.95, third in the floor routine with a 9.3, and finished fourth on the balance beam with a score of 8.4

Overall, the Trojans finished in sixth place at the meet with a total team score of 122.425.

Head coach Joni Reitmeier said that the two events that cost WHS a chance of finishing higher were the bars and the vault.

“We had two falls on the bars, which is unusual for us, so that was kind of costly,” Reitmeier said. “We didn’t perform bad on the vault, but we didn’t receive scores that we usually are used to receiving.”

Reitmeier added that the Trojans did “exceptionally well” in the floor event, and had a mixture of good and bad beam routines.

“Overall the girls performed well,” Reitmeier said. “We couldn’t practice on Friday because they got out of school, so we went into the meet with no practice, so overall we did a good job.”

Worthington’s next meet will be at Martin County West on Tuesday, and on Thursday the team will have a home meet against Windom.

Thursday will be both “Parent’s Night” and “Meet the Trojans Night” for the team. After the meet the team will stay behind to hand out and sign posters.

Tags: sports, prep, trojans, gymnastics