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Hendricks wins second place medal

MARK HENDRICKS of New Ulm is caught upside-down by camera during tumbling event during state tournament Saturday. He finished sixth in this event and took second medal on free exercise.

MINNEAPOLIS — Of the four New Ulm High School gymnasts who made it to the finals in the state meet here Saturday night, only one came home with a medal; Mark Hendricks took second place in free exercise.

Medals were given to the top three finishers in each of seven events Saturday night.

Team competition was concluded Saturday afternoon. Armstrong of New Hope took first place trophy, Cooper was second and Anoka third.

In the evening individual finals, Cooper picked up six of the 21 medals while Armstrong had four. Randy DeBruyn of Cooper and Greg Johnson of Armstrong each won two medals.

Hendricks, who was fourth in free exercise going into the finals, had an 8.45 to tie champion DeBruyn of the best evening performance on that event. DeBruyn had 17.15 accumulative score while Hendricks was runnerup at 16.95.

Dave Rosenbloom of New Ulm, who was tied for second in free exercise going into the finals, slipped to 7.9 score and 16.45 total for fourth place, just missing a medal.

Tom Pederson finished seventh on the pommel (side) horse. He was the first contestant in the finals and got a 5.95 score for 12.30 total on two rounds. Judges seemed a bit more generous on some later contestants who had breaks in their routines but higher scores than Pederson. If Pederson had finished one notch higher, he would have qualified to perform during the state basketball tournament intermission shows. The top six in each event get to perform at the cage tourney.

Jeff Berg finished seventh on still rings and also just missed a basketball tourney appearance. However, he got an 8.25 in the finals for his first 8-plus score in his career, so he bowed out with some feeling of achievement. Berg had 15.70 total for the two rounds.

Rosenbloom finished seventh on parallel bars, becoming the third Eagle to fall just one notch short of qualifying for the basketball tourney performance. He had 7.3 Saturday night and 15.15 composite score.

Hendricks had a fair shot at another medal as one of the last contestants in tumbling, but he slipped to 7.8 score and 16.05 composite. Had he equaled his prelim score of 8.25, Hendricks would have tied for third place. However, he did finish sixth and will appear twice in the state basketball tournament: tumbling and free exercise.

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FAIRMONT, Region 1 champion, placed only two boys in the finals. Brad Barke was ninth on parallel bars and Jeff Clay seventh on horizontal bar.

Jim Schmidt, coach of New Ulm’s team, was named “coach of the year” by the state gymnastics coaches association.

Three former New Ulm gymnasts were judges in the state meet: Ted Marti, brother Chuck Marti and Vern Ahrndt. Ted is a graduate student at University of Minnesota and Chuck is a senior on the Gopher gym squad. Ahrndt is a junior high principal in Plymouth.

A fourth NUHS gym graduate, Jim Wolf, is coach of Bloomington Lincoln team.

New Ulm Daily Journal, March 19, 1973

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