Cougars’ Keith 4th all-around in debut season

Four Farmington gymnasts compete at state

Already a successful club gymnast, Piper Keith came to the Lakeville South High School program looking for a change.

It seems she will be sticking around awhile.

It’s hard to imagine many more successful high school debut seasons than the one Keith just completed. Not only did the ninth-grader help Lakeville South win its first Class AA team championship Feb. 23, she came back the next night and finished fourth in the individual all-around at Roy Wilkins Auditorium.

Next year she will be part of a core group that figures to give the Cougars a good head start toward defending their team title.

“I just thought that high school (gymnastics) would be more fun,” Keith said when asked about her decision to join the Cougars. “And I thought I’d have more free time. It was a good choice. I really like it.”

She saved some of her best performances for the state meet, including scoring 37.625 all-around in the team competition, which Lakeville South won by 2.5 points. Her 37.85 in the individual finals was her best score of the season.

High school gymnasts rarely compete on back-to-back days unless they make it to the state meet. Keith said she wasn’t concerned about how her body would respond for the individual meet one day after the Cougars put a lot of energy into winning the team championship.

“I was a little tired, but once I got here everything just came to me and I was so excited,” she said. “You know what your body has to do and everything falls into place.”

St. Michael-Albertville senior Jackie Bergeron scored 38.35 to win the Class AA all-around, and she added victories on vault, balance beam and floor exercise. Keith earned a state medal for a fourth-place finish on bars, where she scored 9.525. Keith placed ninth on vault with 9.5, 11th on beam with 9.4 and 12th on floor exercise with 9.425.

Lakeville South senior Autumn Schmidt also qualified for the Class AA individual all-around competition, placing 11th with 36.75. She medaled on floor exercise taking eighth place with 9.45. Her other scores were 9.25 on vault (29th), 9.0 on bars (20th) and 9.1 on balance beam (27th).

South ninth-grader Reese King qualified for the state individual finals on balance beam and tied for second with 9.5. Bergeron won the event with 9.625, with Forest Lake’s Anna Philipson tying King for second.

Lakeville South will graduate captains Schmidt and Alexa Drew (who missed the second half of the season because of an injury), but Keith, King, sophomore Summer Theis, junior Molly Ruhland and eighth-grader Julia Olson will be among next year’s returnees.

Keith said last weekend the Cougars have already started talking about what it will take to repeat in 2024-25.

“The expectations are pretty high, but I think we can all work hard and get what we want,” she said.

Results for other gymnasts from the Sun Thisweek/Dakota County Tribune coverage area at the Class AA individual meet:

Apple Valley/Eastview

Three gymnasts represented the co-op program at state.

Sophomore Lauren Heidemann scored 8.875 on uneven parallel bars to finish 27th, and was 37th on balance beam with 8.525

Ninth-grader Gwenyth Bodnar finished 13th on beam with 9.35 and 38th on floor exercise with 8,975. Brianna Gootee, a sophomore, scored 8.675 on floor to finish 44th.

Eagan

Wildcats senior Carys Sundberg finished 29th on bars, scoring 8.7. Jaeleigh Eklund, also a senior, placed 36th on bars with 8.65.

Farmington

Macyn Hinz, a senior, finishing ninth on floor exercise with 9.45, missing a state medal by one place. Four gymnasts actually tied for the seventh-best score with 9.45, with Hinz coming in ninth when tiebreakers were applied.

Also competing at state for the Tigers were Emerson Marken, 13th on bars with 9.175; Emma Oden, 17th on bars with 9.075; and Lauren Johnson, 19th on beam with 9.225. All are seniors.

Farmington finished the season ranked 10th in Class AA. The Tigers finished third in the Section 1AA meet behind No. 1-ranked Lakeville South and second-ranked Owatonna.

Rosemount

Irish junior Faith Green placed 44th on vault with 9.0. Senior Amelia Zaske scored 8.0 on beam to finish 45th. Avarie Otto, a junior, was 28th on floor exercise with 9.225.