Aberdeen Central may not have any seniors, and may not have a long list of athletes, but the Golden Eagles do posses gymnasts who are veteran performers.
“We’re young and we’re small,” said Central coach Mickey Everson. “We don’t have a lot of numbers.”
What the Golden Eagles do have is four gymnasts who are no strangers to the sport. Juniors Regan Lust and Alexis Bomesberger, along with Hattie Gederos and Morgan Griebel will comprise the bulk of the varsity squad.
“The top four girls that I think are going to make up our varsity have been in this before,” Everson said. “They know what to do and they’re great leaders.”
Madelyn Walberg will be unavailable to compete this season after having surgery.
Everson said the Golden Eagles will be focusing on two specific areas in practice this season: bars and beam.
The veteran coach said that bars take priority as the first thing to work on each day.
“We start with bars because it’s the most exhausting,” Everson said. “If we try to come to bars later after they’ve tumbled or done other arm strength stuff, they do bad. So we start with bars. We do it every day.”
Of course, beam work isn’t far behind.
“You need to be on the bars every day and I always say you need to be on the beam every day,” Everson said. “Every minute that you can be up there gives you more of a comfort feeling, to be comfortable being up there. So we do that every day.”
What the Golden Eagles attempt to do on the beam might be anything but comfortable. Everson said there are many parallels between floor exercise and beam.
“Your beam routines are made of jumps and dancy-leaps type thing,” she said, “and then the other half should be tumbling, which is cartwheels and your back walkovers.”
While the movements are similar to a floor exercise, the degree of difficulty is much higher, because the beam can be less forgiving.
“It’s very difficult. Everything you do on floor transfers to beam, only it’s only four inches wide,” Everson said. “It’s very difficult. So like I said the more time you can spend up there, the more reps you can get of these things, the more comfortable they feel.”
While the gymnasts train over and over on physical skills, there is also another key component that Everson tries to help with.
“We do a lot of mental gymnastics as well where we practice imagining or little cues or clues of trying to get out of their head, because they’re terrified,” Everson said. “They feel like I am going to die if I flip backwards on this, so we work with that.”
Everson even goes so far as to create potential meet environments for the athletes including complete silence or loud music.
The Eagles also get a chance to perform for judges prior to the season to help them know what to work on before the official competition begins.
“We had an intersquad meet last week,” Everson said. “Judges have to practice judge before they can officially judge. So every year we offer an intersquad meet.”
That meet not only provides training for the judges, but Everson believes it gives her gymnasts a chance to fine-tune things before heading into the season.
“I feel like it gives us a little insight as to what those judges might see, what they think,” Everson said, “and it gives my girls a chance to do it under pressure.”
Central will host a few more meets than usual this season, including the Eastern South Dakota Conference Meet in late January.
Everson said hosting meets is always beneficial.
“That’s always good,” she said. “I think the girls are more comfortable at home, obviously, and our home crowd, friends and family can come.”
Everson said team goals have not been discussed quite yet, but that the athletes have talked about their individual ambitions.
“Individually I have them start writing some things,” Everson said. “What is your vision for your tumbling on beam, so we do a lot of individualized so I know what they want to work on. What do they want to do, give them some options.”
Central will start its season by hosting a dual on Thursday, Dec. 4. Last season the Golden Eagles qualified eight individuals for the state meet, the most in Everson’s tenure.
Everson said the goals may change a bit this winter because of the small team size, but identified areas of strengths and weaknesses for the upcoming season.
“We always struggle with bars,” Everson said, “so I know that’s going to be our lower end that we’re going to have to work harder on. … I think our floor is going to look pretty solid.”
