In what was, essentially, an early-season dry run for the state tournament, the Aberdeen Central gymnastics program finished eighth at the Hub City Invitational Saturday at Golden Eagles Arena.

But it was also a measuring stick, of sorts.

“The Jamestown meet (Dec. 1) was just to see where we were with routines and that we had everything we needed in our routines,” said Central coach Mickey Everson. “Now we put that to use here at home, knowing we were going up against some (Class) AA teams. We’re not up there yet, but we still wanted to give a good performance in our home gym.”

Senior Masyn Schutter was ninth in the all-around competition and led all Golden Eagle athletes in each of the four disciplines.

That’s precisely what Everson expected from her lone senior and team captain.

“She did an amazing job,” Everson said. “As our captain and senior … she’s the leader of the group performing right now. She holds herself to a high standard.”

Everson said Schutter was able to work through some mental hiccups from the previous day and give a solid performance on Saturday.

“Gymnastics can be very in your head,” Everson said. “There can be a lot of overthinking. There’s a lot of focusing and making sure of what you’re about to do and then doing it safely. … She did that well today.”

Everson also noted that with the majority of the season left to compete, she had high hopes for continued improvement across the board.

“Everyone has something we can change, everyone has things we can add,” Everson said. “There were some things we left out of our routines today, just because I wanted to be cleaner. … There’s some things they’re ready to perform, we just need to clean it up. That gives me high hopes that we have things we can still do.”

Central will head to the Jill McCormick Invitational in Mitchell Saturday.

All-Around

1, Audrey Meyer, SFO, 38.125; 2, Brinly Sanderson, HAR, 36.875; 3, Grace Miller, SFO, 36.225; 4, Rachel Bruggerman, SFL, 35.775; 5, Shauna Evenson, WAT, 35.400; 6, Jersey Tryson, HAR, 35.025; 7, Lauren Holte, SFL, 34.000; 8, Anna Matrisciano, SFR, 33.975; 9, Masyn Schutter, ABR, 33.725; 10, Sterling Mertens, BH, 33.050.