Three Huskies excel through adversity

Facing adversity is a fundamental part of any sport and nobody learned more about the concept than Owatonna gymnastics did in Farmington this past weekend.

While Owatonna ran away with the Section 1AA title by beating Lakeville South 148.675-145.925, the big win was anything but easy for the Huskies.

Adversity struck just mere minutes into the day when freshman gymnast Delia Neumann took center stage for the floor exercise event.

Neumann regularly appears in the bars, beam and vault lineups for the Huskies, but Head Coach Evan Moe needed her to fill a new role in a big moment.

As Neumann began the opening seconds of her routine, the music cut out, leaving her alone on the mat with all eyes on her and nothing to help her keep her timing and rhythm.

“At first, I thought it just glitched and that it would come back on. So I was like, ‘Just keep going. It’ll come back on.’ The whole time I was trying not to cry because I was so stressed through the whole routine and I began to forget parts of it,” said Neumann.

Instead of letting the pressure of the moment get to her, Neumann turned to her team for advice.

“I accidentally moved one of my dances to the middle of it,” said Neumann with a laugh. “But I kept looking for Evan [Moe] and Kiana [Starks] to help remember parts of the routine.”

The music may not have come back on, but Neumann made sure her performance spoke for itself.

The freshman stuck all her stunts and filled the seconds in between with some “freestyling” that made her routine look as if she had the music still going in her head.

The result: a 9.375-point performance that earned her a ticket to the floor exercise event at the state individual tournament.

“I didn’t see the score. I just heard everyone cheering and knew it had to be good if the team was happy. It was a good feeling to throw up one of my best scores with no music,” she said.

After the floor, Owatonna went over to the vault where disaster nearly struck.

After the first four gymnasts took flight to earn their scores, Owatonna senior captain and all-around athlete Halle Theis lined up for her routine.

Just weeks ago, Theis had injured herself in the event after a hard landing at Lakeville North hurt her left ankle and kept her from competing temporarily.

Theis stuck her first landing of the day, but the second routine saw he land, double over and let out some tears as her coaches held her up.

The injury had Huskies’ fans holding there breathe due to Theis’s unique position in the lineup.

As the all-around athlete, the senior competes in all four events – as is required of one athlete from each competing team.

Since no two same Huskies athletes had competed in the floor and vault outside of Theis through the first two events, if Theis were to be held from competition, the Huskies would be ineligible for state due to not having an all-arounder.

Thankfully for the Huskies, quitting was not an option for Theis.

“I landed and felt it, and I was like, ‘Oh crap.’ But I think I’d felt that so many times since the initial injury that I was still optimistic that I would be OK. I just needed a minute, but it was nice knowing floor and vault were out of the way already. The bars were a good way for me to get some time to rest it,” said Theis.

The rest paid dividends as the senior standout went on to round out her day as the second-place finisher in the all-around competition with a stellar 37.025-point performance.

Her efforts earned her a spot in the state individual tournament for the all-around competition.

Theis’s rotation wrapped up with a 9.200-point routine on the beam, while another Husky was waiting to face her biggest battle of the day.

After being held out of her usual role in the Huskies’ beam lineup during the Big Nine Championships, junior Chloe Myer was reinstated for the team’s section championship push.

According to Myer, being held out gave her a chip on her shoulder to prove herself.

“I was very sad being held out, but it made me stronger. I knew I had to get better… Heading into the meet I just had a different feeling. Going into this week, I knew I had to do this for our team in order to make a push for state,” said Myer.

The hard work paid off as the junior threw up a 9.650 routine to set a personal record and help boost the Huskies to a program record point total of 37.900.

The efforts of Myer, Neumann and Theis may helped pave the way for a special performance from the Huskies in a day that fans in attendance won’t forget anytime soon.