The Hamline gymnastics program had last tasted victory in a meet over a full calendar year ago. A young team, one with only two seniors on it, while also dealing with multiple injuries, was slowly developing to a place where they could compete for a meet win. Finally, everything came together Friday, Feb. 5 with a meet win over UW-Stout.

This victory was not only just the third meet win the Pipers have had in the last three years, it’s the widest margin of victory for the program in at least half a decade of competing in the WIAC. Their point total of 185.775 is also the highest the program has achieved in the same span of time.

Sophomore Sela Fadness paced the Pipers in their meet, counting a third-place tie on the vault, a second-place finish on the balance beam, and an individual event victory on her floor exercise.

“That meet went really well,” said Fadness. “Even though I personally did well on Friday that was only three scores out of twenty so we pretty much hit our routines as well as we have all season.”

For each of four events, vault, balance beam, uneven parallel bars, and floor, six gymnasts from each team are in the lineup and the top five scores from those six are counted for the team grades in those events. Every tenth, or even hundredth, of a point counts.

“We’re focusing a lot on the little details because they all add up at the end of the season,” said junior Mady Couves. “We have some other areas we are focusing on but that’s what’s in the back of our minds at the end of every single practice.”

Details were the name of the game in the victory. The Pipers scored 2.35 points higher than Stout in the uneven parallel bars, largely due to at least three separate Stout gymnasts causing an interruption to their performance by brushing the ground and being forced to continue their performance from a dead stop.

“On bars we competed fairly strongly,” said Hamline gymnastics head coach Doug Byrnes. “We had a couple of little glitches but for the most part we moved through our glitches effectively.”

The gymnastics program has been undergoing a rebirth in the last several years as well as a complete change in philosophy and a re-dedication towards being more team-oriented.

“When I came into the program, I didn’t know that our team wanted to win,” said senior Andrew Gross. “Our focus and the atmosphere has just gotten so much better. Everyone has one common goal where in the past it’s been more about your individual performance and less about the team doing well.”

The gymnasts have also begun to work together much more and respect everyone’s contributions.

“I look up to the first-years because they come in their first year and they’re competing really well,” said Gross. “I look up to the sophomores and juniors because they have experience now and they know what they’re doing in the gym, and obviously I look up to Brianna, the other senior.”

The results from the Feb. 5 meet was surprising to many of the gymnasts in a good way.

“I expected it to be a close meet, a closer meet than it was,” said Byrnes. “I knew we could win and that we could compete well and have our highest score of the year.”

The Pipers’ conference meet schedule continued with a meet this past Sunday Feb. 14 against Gustavus Adolphus  (results not available at time of print). Their next competition occurs Friday Feb. 19 at Winona St. and begins at 6:30 p.m.