The Blue Earth Area gymnastics team, above, are bigger and stronger than last year. From left to right are (front row) Katie Allis, Arianna Nagel, Amarrah Harris, Sydney Blagg, Madison Dulac, Hayley Jahnke, Adrianna Reddick, Aubrey Nagel, Izzy Walker, and (back row, left to right) Elizabeth Uecker, Haley Kalis, Rylan Storbeck, Payten Gudahl, Addison Armstrong, Jazmyn Lunz, Lauren Survis, and Destiny Massey. The team hopes to create a stronger team dynamic, as well as work on their execution during their routines.

It’s time to hit the floor running, or the bars, or the beam, for the Blue Earth Area gymnastics team.

Head Coach Rachel Cole says the team has a lot of young gymnasts this season and all have a lot of potential to do well.

The teams captains this season are Katie Allis, Sydney Blagg, Hayley Jahnke and Arianna Nagel.

“Our seniors this season are Katie Allis, Hayley Jahnke, Arianna Nagel and Izzy Walker,” says Cole. “Sydney and Arianna had a lot a varsity time last season while Katie was able to compete on varsity bars for us and JV?floor and beam. Izzy had a varsity spot on beam and competed in JV floor. Hayley was a strong JV all-arounder for us last season.”

Cole says all of the team’s seventh and eighth graders and the majority of the ninth graders compete on all events.

“Last season, ninth grader Jazmyn Lunz had the opportunity to compete on varsity floor. She has really shown a lot of confidence and consistency in practice this year,” says the coach. “Both of our eighth graders, Haley Kalis and Adrianna Reddick, were very strong contributors to the varsity team and so we’re counting on them to continue doing so.”

This year, the team has 18 girls, which will give the Buccaneers more depth than they’ve had the past few seasons.

Included this year are seventh graders Addison Armstrong, Madison Dulac, Payten Gudahl, Olivia Haaland, Rylan Storbeck, Lauren Survis, and Elizabeth Uecker.

Tenth grader Amarrah Harris, along with ninth graders Destiny Massey, and Aubrey Nagel will return to help out the team as well.

“We’ve had a few girls out with injuries last year and needed to pull some of the junior varsity girls to fill those spots on varsity and with so few girls, that left holes in our JV roster,” says Cole. “We also have some incoming girls with some gymnastics background and experience in competing.”

The Bucs ended last season on a high note and they are just working hard to build their confidence back up and getting their skill level back to where they left off before their first competition in a few weeks.

“There is always room for improvement in the execution of routines and skills as well as the difficulty in routines,” adds Cole. “My assistant coach LaNay Hervey and I are continuing to focus on cleaning up routines with the girls and working on building more skills.”

She says they are working hard to educate the girls on what goes into their routines and what combinations of skills they can put together to help increase their scores.

The coaches hope to hit somewhere in the 120-125 point range and, perhaps, add a few more dual meet victories this year.

“But our most important goal is to continue to improve as a team,” says Cole.

The first home BEA gymnastics meet is set for Dec. 11, at 6 p.m. at the Winnebago former school building location as they face off against St. Peter. The Bucs also are hosts on Dec. 14 to Luverne, Jan. 8 to Windom and Waseca, Jan. 25 to St. James Area, and Jan. 29 to MCW and Mankato East and West this year.