The 2021 SDHSAA State Gymnastics meet will take place from the Civic Arena in Watertown on February 12-13. Despite some early concerns about the sport taking place this winter, gymnastics, like all winter sports/activities, was given the green light to proceed.
South Dakota Public Broadcasting will provide a live video stream, event photos, and results at sdpb.org/gymnastics.
This year’s format is slightly modified with the main goal to keeping the student athletes, officials, coaches, and spectators safe. One way they’re doing that is by cutting down on the number of schools who are in the venue at a given time.
“We’ll divide up into the pods where there would only be four teams involved in each pod,” explained South Dakota High School Activities Association assistant executive director Jo Auch. “The goal is that when your teams are competing, you’ll be allowed in the facility. We’re thinking probably about two hours to two-and-a-half hours per pod.”
Another change occurring this year is each class, A and AA, will have a day to compete. For quite some time, the SDHSAA has gone with the Capital Cup format, which has both classes performing both days. One day being team competition and the second day being individual competition.
“You’re still going to have your team competition and you’re still going to have your individual competition, but it’s all going to be in the same routine,” Auch said. “And this is what they did way back in the 90’s. You came and did one event, and you were judged individually, and you were judged with the score towards team as well.”
The Deuel Cardinals come into this year’s event as the three-time defending state champs in ‘A.’ They’re in pod three on Friday along with Parkston/Ethan/Hanson/Mt. Vernon, Hot Springs, and Madison. At the time of the third pod, it will only be those four squads in the building at that time.
“I kind of like the way we’ve been competing this year. We kind of compete in pods, so we’re in the last pod that day, or last session,” said Deuel head gymnastics coach Caitlin Steffensen. “They warm up an event, they compete it right away, and then we move to the next, so you don’t have to sit and get cold and can think about the next thing. It all moves pretty fast, which is kind of nice.”
Both days of the state gymnastics competition will stream live online at sdpb.org/gymnastics. A condensed version of the meet will also air live on SDPB1-TV on Sunday March 21st, the day after the boy’s state basketball tournaments.
