When a dynasty in sports gets mentioned, most people look to football or basketball. However, in South Dakota, Deuel high school has created something of a small dynasty in gymnastics – especially over the past decade.
The Deuel Cardinals have been atop the standings in ‘A’ gymnastics for the past two years now. And this week, the squad will aim to make it three state championships in a row. This wouldn’t be the first time Deuel has won three straight gymnastics titles. The Cardinals did it in 2011-13 as well.
Since 2009, Deuel has finished in the top two a total of nine times – five of the years since that have resulted in a state championship. Caitlin Steffensen is in her third as the squad’s head coach this season. Despite winning the state team title the past two years, she still gets nervous before the state meet.
“I think I get more nervous for them than I ever did competing, and I’m like ‘what in the world?’ But you just know how well they can do, and you just want them to do their best. And I think that goes with every coach, like you can just see it, you know,” said Steffensen. “Everyone’s excited and definitely has adrenaline and hoping that their team is going to do good at state, because that’s what you train all year for.”
One big component as to why Deuel has seen success the past few years is because of one of their seniors – Morgan Kwasniewski.
As a freshman, Kwasniewski won individual titles in Balance Beam and Uneven Bars. The next year she took home the state championships in Vault, Uneven Bars, Floor Exercise, and All Around. And then as a junior Kwasniewski claimed gold once again in Balance Beam, Floor Exercise and All Around. That’s a total of nine individual state championship in three years.
There are only six gymnasts in state history who have more individual state titles in a high school career. The state record for individual titles in a career is nineteen set by Sam Wiekamp, also of Deuel, from 2008 to 2012.
Deuel enters the state meet in 2020 as the No. 1 ranked team in ‘A.’ Their region score of 142.875 was a strong margin in front of Madison’s 134.500.
The team portion of the state meet will take place on Friday with Saturday consisting of the individual part of the competition. All of the action will stream live online at sdpb.org/gymnastics. A production of the event will also air live on SDPB1-TV on Saturday March 15th before the championship session of the Girls ‘B’ State Basketball Tournament.
