Prep athletes of the week: St. Michael-Albertville gymnast Jackie Bergeron returns to state with a posse

St. Michael-Albertville • gymnastics

Jackie Bergeron competed in two individual events at last year's Class 2A gymnastics meet as a freshman.

This year, her teammates are joining her after Bergeron put together a personal-best all-around score of 37.5 points to spark the Knights to the Class 2A, Section 5 title — their first section title in program history.

"Jackie has had a great sophomore season," Knights coach Heather Dietrich Feigum said. "She's excited to get to compete at state with her teammates this year. She's continually pushing to improve her scores, and she works hard to identify and fix imperfections to gain more tenths each week."

Bergeron, who was 10th in the vault and 21st in the floor exercise at last year's state meet, had the top score in three of the four events — balance beam (9.5), floor exercise (9.525) and vault (9.6) — at the section meet and was fourth in bars (8.925).

"Jackie knows growth looks like a jig-jagged roller-coaster path, and hard work through it is the only way to level up," Dietrich Feigum said.

Bloomington Jefferson • basketball

The 6-3 sophomore guard scored a season-high 37 points in the Jaguars' 63-61 victory over Cooper. Freitag, who is averaging 25 points per game, also scored 30 in a 57-53 loss to Chanhassen and 25 in a 69-59 victory over Fridley.

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Hastings • swimming

The senior closed out his regular season by setting two pool records at Hastings Middle School during a dual meet against Two Rivers. Jensen set records in the 100 butterfly (51.37 seconds) and 100 backstroke (51.86) and also led off the Raiders' winning 200 medley relay.

Minneapolis Southwest • basketball

The 5-11 junior guard scored a total of 51 points in two victories last week as the Lakers (18-2) extended their winning streak to nine. Johnson, who surpassed 1,000 career points last month, is averaging 17.2 points per game.

Prior Lake • Nordic skiing

The junior won the individual pursuit title at the Section 1 meet at Hyland Lake Park Reserve and led the Lakers to their fifth consecutive section title. O'Connor finished first in skate (12:23.5) and second in classic (13:58.1) for an overall time of 26:21.6.

Osseo • basketball

The junior guard is averaging 27 points per game — fourth best in the state — and scored a school-record 47 points against DeLaSalle earlier this month. She has scored at least 30 points eight times this season, including last week in a 84-67 loss to Rogers.

Orono • Alpine skiing

The senior won the Section 5 individual title last week at Wild Mountain with a time of 1:00.77 — edging defending state champion Ava Pihlstrom of Blake by 0.2 seconds. Wock finished 12th at the state meet last year.

JOEL RIPPEL

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