HURON — The Mitchell High School gymnastics team was back in action on Tuesday night and picked up another team meet victory at the Huron Invitational.
Mitchell scored 146.100 points, besting rival Watertown by 2.150 points, as the Arrows checked in with 143.950 points. Sioux Falls Lincoln was next closest in third place with 138.450 points. The Kernels remain undefeated in 10 team competitions this season.
The seven-team meet was a make-up meet from Jan. 14 when weather postponed the competition.
Using their alternate lineup with the meet now sandwiched between the Jan. 20 Watertown Invitational and a Jan. 27 triangular at Brookings, the Kernels were solid as a team in three of the four disciplines, in particular on floor exercise, where the Kernels had their third-best team score of the season on floor.
The Kernels were only outscored as a team in the vault, where they were eight-tenths of a point behind Watertown. The Kernels' team vault score of 35.600 was Mitchell's lowest of the season.
ADVERTISEMENT
Kyanna Gropper led the way for Mitchell on Tuesday, taking second in the all-around scoring with a mark of 36.500. She had a score of 9.400 on uneven bars, good for second in the event, and tied for second in the vault (9.000) with teammate Chelsey Mohr.
Kernel gymnast Sidney Malde was third in the all-around (36.200). She took second in the floor exercise (9.600), tied for third place on the balance beam (9.350), seventh on bars (8.550) and 10th on vault (8.700).
Aubrey Gelderman was second on the balance team (9.650) and third on floor (9.550) for the Kernels.
Fellow Kernel Emerson Smith was fourth individually on floor exercise (9.400). Tessa Allen tied for fourth with a score of 8.900 on the vault.
Mitchell's Emily Moody finished third on uneven bars (9.000), tied for sixth place on the balance beam (9.250). Mohr also finished sixth on the bars (8.650).
Watertown's Myah Morris swept the individual event titles and the all-around honors with her best performance of the season. The two-time Class AA state all-around champion (2018 and 2019) scored 38.900 in the all-around, powered by a 9.850 on vault, a 9.750 on balance beam, and 9.650 each on floor exercise and uneven bars.
It ups her previous season-best of 38.625 in the all-around scoring and put her within one-tenth of a point of O'Gorman's Maeve Boetel, who has the state's best all-around score of the season at 39.000.
Mitchell competes on Thursday, Jan. 27 at Brookings in a triangular with Madison, which will be Mitchell's last regular-season competition prior to the Eastern South Dakota Conference championships on Feb. 5 in Mitchell.
