MINNESOTA MEN'S GYMNASTICS CONTINUES ITS WINNING WAYS AT THE MINNESOTA GymACT INVITATIONAL

February 17, 2024

Minnesota kept its undefeated season intact with a tri-meet victory over Eastern Conference rivals Iowa and Northern Illinois on Saturday in front of a packed house at Humboldt High School in St Paul. The GymACT session was the highlight of the Minnesota GymACT Invitational that brought 260 Junior Gymnasts to town to compete in what's becoming one of the bigger meets for boys in Minnesota.

"This was another awesome performance for our boys tonight,' said head coach Mike Burns. "We continue to put up solid performances with solid routines, capped off with an amazing amount of positive energy coming from everyone on the team. We have an amazing bunch of guys and this team has a lot of special things going for it."

Kellen Ryan, David Grossman, and Ben Letvin swept the top three spots in the All Around competition and they continue to occupy the 1st, 4th, and 2nd places in the GymACT National Rankings in the All Around, respectively. The 3rd place spot in the National Rankings is occupied by Minnesota's Jack Gagamov who was unable to compete this weekend due to illness.

Minnesota started the meet on Still Rings and posted their highest team score of the season (53.60) and the top spot went to Dylan LeClair from Minnesota. Dylan is PT student at Mayo Clinic and is coaching the boys team at Rochester Academy of Gymnastics and he's currently ranked #2 in the country in his specialty!

The next event was Vault and again we posted our highest team score of the season (57.85) with All Around champ Kellen Ryan taking top honors with a stuck landing on his Kasamatsu with 1 1/2 twists.

Next event was Parallel Bars where we once again posted the highest score of the season (51.75). We also saw freshman David Grossman take home the event title with a score of 13.55 which included a near stick on his full twisting double back dismount!

Our next event was High Bar where we had a few problem spots but we were still able to win the event as a team. The interesting thing about this event is the fact that the eventual winner of the event was Aaron Novick who was competing on High Bar as an exhibition routine and his score did not even count for the team score. The top score on the High Bar within the lineup was posted by freshman Zach Smollin with a score of 12.90. As you can see, our freshman class has brought some serious firepower to our program!

With two events to go, Minnesota headed off to Floor Exercise for the much awaited revealing of the hardest skill being done today - IN THE WORLD!! Redshirt freshman Charlie Larson would be performing a triple twisting double layout as an opening pass. It is almost too hard to comprehend but Charlie did it almost flawlessly and went on to finish a great set and post the highest score of the event with a 13.10. Even better news was the fact that fellow freshman Ben Letvin matched Charlie's score to grab a share of the event title!

Off to Pommel Horse we went where we again had a tie for the event title between All Around champion Kellen Ryan and Junior Koa Taylor with identical scores of 12.60. Minnesota was again able to put the highest team score of the night on this event and when the dust settled, the team results looked something like this:

  1. MINNESOTA Men's Gymnastics 312.80

  2. Iowa GymACT 287.70

  3. Northern Illinois Huskies 281.75

The entire weekend was full of amazing moments of great performances, amazing victory celebrations, and some disappointments as well. But overall, this WAS the place to be on the evening of February 17, 2024. The guys on the team and a bunch of their parents who came to watch and help did an amazing job of setting up the entire gym on Friday night and tearing it all down on Sunday afternoon.

This was one of our three big fundraising events and while the finances are still being calculated, we are feeling pretty good that we brought in a decent amount of money from this great event. Every donation helps keep this program afloat and every fundraising effort does the same.

Thanks to all who helped out and thanks to all the junior gymnasts who competed in the meet. I believe they were treated to a fun experience and a quality event.

Our next excursion takes us to Indianapolis this coming weekend where we'll be competing in the Circle of Stars Competition (https://circleofstars.org/)

Thanks to all of you who continue to support us through your efforts or your money or both!!! We wouldn't be here without your help!