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A pleasant surprise

Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm’s Sarah Longtin will compete in the State Gymnastics meet Saturday at the University of Minnesota.

NEW ULM — New Ulm junior Sarah Longtin wasn’t expecting to qualify for the Class A State Gymnastics meet last week, especially in an event that has typically given her troubles.

Longtin managed to qualify for the state meet in beam with an 8.8, good enough for third place at the Section 2A meet. It’s the second year in a row a New Ulm gymnast has qualified for state. Longtin will put her skills on display at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Sports Pavilion on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

Longtin has her strengths in a couple of events. She pointed out that those strengths aren’t what she’s actually going to state for.

“Anything other than beam, and bars,” she joked at Tuesday’s practice. “I would’ve much rather gone in the floor or the vault, but I’m just excited for the experience.”

While she may have been a little bit serious, she’ll have to focus on an event this week that has traditionally given her and her teammates trouble. It also gives the younger gymnasts in the program hope, knowing that consistency pays off.

“It’s hit or miss,” she said. “It’s a new vision for them that it is possible to just do your best. When I went into my routine on [last week] and stuck it and got the 8.8, I was like ‘wow, it’s possible, you just got to be clean.'”

Her coach Kortney Peterson said that the younger athletes in the program notice Longtin’s hard work.

“She’s been a positive role model for the girls in the gym, definitely someone the girls can look up to skill-wise,” Peterson said. “She comes into practice and works hard everyday. Beam has been our struggle this year, the last couple of weeks in the season she really hit the beam hard and it showed. She hit her routine at sections and it was beautiful.”

Longtin’s routine at the section meet was nothing different than she had been doing all year. She simply got it down at the right time.

“At first I was sticking all of my routines, but then I had a little portion of the season where I kept falling,” Longtin said. “Then at sections, I learned how to just focus on the beam and zone everything out. When you’re on the beam, you just have to learn how block everything else out.”

She’s been competing in gymnastics four about 13 years, but she never really had it in her mind that she’d be competing on the state’s biggest stage.

“I’ve always been up in the higher numbers, but I’ve never anticipated state being one of my accomplishments,” she said. “I’ve always thought that I could do really well at sections, like get in the Top 10, I never anticipated getting in the Top 4.”

Last year, Mya Kotten qualified for state in bars and that ended a long drought. Kotten finished 28th with a score of 7.8. The New Ulm varsity team got to watch her compete and Longtin for one was able to soak in the atmosphere.

“The whole experience was just overwhelming,” Longtin said. “To go for one event, you can take in the other things, watching the others compete, it’s intense. The other girls are doing way more complicated skills than we have ever done and that’s what makes me a little more nervous. Other girls are doing back tucks and aeriels and I’m doing a simple routine. But if you can stick it and make it clean, that’s what matters.”

As far as Saturday goes, she knows she will be nervous in her first state competition. Regardless, she will go in being mentally strong.

“I just have to focus and stay in the zone, maybe that will help block out the nerves a little bit,” she said.

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