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The Mississippi 8 Conference gauntlet finally came to an end for the Chisago Lakes gymnastics squad on Thursday, February 8.
They were downed by a strong Monticello team 141.525-138.825 in their regular season finale. Aliah Williams led the all around again, winning by a comfortable margin, but there were a few too many falls, particularily on the balance beam, for Chisago Lakes to overcome the Magic.

“I think there was a freak storm over the balance beam when we were on it,” Head Coach Brett Kjos jokingly said after the meet. “It looked like it was super windy. We just couldn’t stay on. We had eight falls in the meet and sometimes it seems if one girl falls off, the falls become contagious.”

Outside of the beam though, it was a solid outing for the ‘Cats. Halle Rhein and Callie Schlegel has personal bests on uneven bars, and Rhein also added a personal best on the floor. “They have been working hard in practice to clean up their routines,” Kjos said. “Halle has been working on putting higher level skills into her routines to get ready for sections.”

Williams’ 37.425 was tops in the meet by almost two full points. She scored a 9.45 on the vault, 9.45 on the bars, 9.0 on the beam and 9.525 on the floor. “She has a really good shot of advancing to the state meet this year,” Kjos noted.

Section Preview
With the regular season concluded, the ‘Cats will take part in the Section 7A meet on Saturday, February 17 at Monticello at noon.
The section is absolutely packed with good teams this year. Sartell-St. Stephen, Big Lake, Monticello, Becker and North Branch are all ranked in the top 15 in the state in Class A, with Chisago Lakes ranked 16th. Sartell is the class of the section, as they’ve registered a 146.625 at one point this year.

That team score will most likely be out of reach for the ‘Cats, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have some potential for individual qualifiers, headlined by Williams, but that field is also stacked since there is so many good teams at the meet.

“This is a big week. We will be working on perfecting our routines for the section meet on Saturday,” Kjos said. “It will be a difficult meet as it’s the toughest section in the state. We’ll need to have our best routines and performances on Saturday.”

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