Dickinson motivated going into 2nd meet

The initial rust and first-meet jitters are gone.
And the Dickinson High gymnastics team isn’t taking a day off - even during Monday’s blizzard conditions.
The Midgets are preparing to host their second meet of the season at 5:30 p.m. today.
“It was very much important to get that first meet out of the way, so they are into it and they know what they have to do,” Dickinson head coach Kent Van Ells said.
Dickinson opened the season a score of 146.475 and took the top three places in the all-around as three-time defending all-around state champion sophomore Acacia Fossum placed first.
Van Ells said it’s always a little bit of an unknown how the team is going to respond after the first meet.
Nonetheless, he’s been pleased with how motivated the team is to take the advice from the judges after the first meet to get better.
“Sometimes after the first meet you are kind of sore - even though they had a couple days - practices are somewhat harder at least initially, because we haven’t really gotten into the swing of it yet,” he said. “Some of the routines were missing some parts and we may be able to fill them in this time. They are motivated by the results of leaving some things out.”
Mikaela Kessel said there were a couple bumps and bruises, but the senior couldn’t be happier with the way the team has returned to practice.
“The first meet is always about getting those jitters out of the way,” Kessel said. “You could tell we were rusty and I’m impressed with how we did. It gives us confidence going into the rest of the season knowing that it was our first meet and we were able to come out so strong.”
Keana Kudrna - a sophomore - said it was a good meet to open with, but she knows the competition this week is going to be much tougher. The three teams traveling to Dickinson are Jamestown, Rapid City (S.D.) Central and Rapid City (S.D.) Stevens.
Central is the two-time defending South Dakota Class 2A state gymnastics champion. The team is also returning the top two all-around placers.
“(Facing tougher competition) will definitely raise our standards,” Kudrna said. “We know that we are going to have to try harder, because it’s harder competition. We are just going to have more ambition to try and get stuff done.”