PARKSTON, S.D. — For a season that has unbelievable highs and painful lows, the Parkston/Ethan/Hanson/Mount Vernon gymnastics team still has one goal that can provide a rewarding finish.
The Royals have a shot at their first Class A state gymnastics team title, and they’re expected to be in the mix when the team competition takes place at 10 a.m. Friday at Mitchell High School.
“We know we have to stay confident and not let one mistake crumble the whole meet,” Royals head coach Jaime Duba said. “It’s very close looking at the numbers, and there’s really four teams all very close and capable of having a great day and fighting for the title.”
Defending three-time state champion Estelline/Hendricks has a three-meet average this season of 143.100 to lead the Class A contenders, while PEHMV is in second on average at 139.917, followed by Deuel (137.033) and Madison (136.375). Estelline/Hendricks’ top score this season is 143.350, while the Royals’ season-best is 141.900.
PEHMV was the Region 2A champion on Feb. 6 with a score of 137.300, but it wasn’t as strong as Duba and the Royals were hoping, especially on balance beam where the team felt it left points on the table. That’s an area on Friday that could help decide the state champions.
“It’s going to be who hits that day and who is on and who has a great day,” Duba said. “And I always say a beam can make or break a team, so we’ll see how confident they stay.”
Craig Wollman / South Dakota Public Broadcasting
The season was not without pain. Senior standout Rory Juhnke suffered a season-ending injury in January. Despite her injury, she ranks in the top-10 of all four individual events in Class A. Juhnke is the team’s lone senior.
“It was a huge hit to our team,” Duba said. “She’s great support for our team mentally, and she’s going to be there and we’ve tried to keep moving forward for her.”
Without Juhnke, the team’s leader is Addison Duba, the team’s standout eighth-grader, who turned heads around the state with a perfect 10 floor exercise routine on Jan. 29 in Vermillion.
She said she was shocked when the scores were flipped and showed the perfect score, which is the lone 10 in South Dakota gymnastics this season.
“I was definitely excited, I thought the routine was one of my best of the season, and then it was crazy to see that score come up,” said Addison Duba, adding that the difficulty and the skill of her tumbling passes are what set the routine apart.
Addison was having a great day with her routines, Jamie Duba said, but didn’t think about the possibility of her daughter scoring a 10. In fact, she was already preparing the equipment for the vault up next when the gym erupted.
“I thought, ‘Wow, it’s a very clean routine and hit everything better than normal,’” coach Duba said. “I heard the reaction and looked over and saw it was a 10. It was fun to see our team’s reaction and then the girls from the other teams came together and were cheering with her. It made it a great moment. … For an eighth-grader to do that, it’s a very special thing.”
With the state individual competition Saturday, Duba enters as one of three defending champions in this year’s meet. Duba shared the Class A balance beam title in 2025 with Estelline/Hendricks’ Portia Trias, who has since graduated. E/H freshman Maggie Hausman is back after winning the floor exercise last season, while Chamberlain senior Kylah Biggins is Class A’s No. 1 vaulter after winning the 2025 event title.
Biggins and Duba have crossed paths at numerous events this season as the top-two all-around gymnasts in Class A in the Mitchell area.
“Those two are really fun competitors,” coach Duba said. “They have such a good relationship and they kind of give it to each other back and forth with the way they compete and try to one up each other. That’s been a really special competition this season and I’m hoping for the best for both of them.”
The Royals’ other top performers this season include sophomore Claire Sommer, eighth-grader Piper Reichert and junior Lily Bahmuller. Duba has the Royals’ top score in every event category and a top all-around score of 36.850.
Estelline/Hendricks was a convincing champion in 2025, winning with 145.933 points, which was seven points ahead of PEHMV (138.883). The 2025 state meet was the second runner-up finish for PEHMV alongside 2019. The co-op has been competing at the varsity level since 2014-15.
New faces winning a Class A state championship is rare. Estelline/Hendricks was the last program to do it when it broke through in 2023. Otherwise, the titles have been shared between Madison (21) and Deuel (seven) since 1995.
And while it’s not their hometown, a state meet in Mitchell is about as good as the Royals can ask for, considering it’s within 20 miles of all four schools in the co-op and it’s a five-minute drive from the team’s regular practice facility at Core Athletics in Mitchell.
“We’re going to have a lot of supporters coming out and cheering for us and getting the chance to watch us,” Addison Duba said. “It’s going to be a fun experience.”
Marcus Traxler is the assistant editor and sports editor for the Mitchell Republic. A past winner of the state’s Outstanding Young Journalist award and the 2023 South Dakota Sportswriter of the Year, he’s worked for the newspaper since 2014 and covers a wide variety of topics. A Minnesota native, Traxler can be reached at [email protected].
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mitchellrepublic.com ’
