Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall’s Saphi McFarquhar performs on the balance beam during their home invitational on Saturday.

MARSHALL — The Marshall gymnastics team returned home over the weekend to hold its annual invitational, placing fifth overall with a score of 126.950.

Seven other teams from across the state came in to compete, including Willmar, New Ulm, Benson/Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg, Redwood Valley, Windom/Mountain Lake, Pipestone and Russell-Tyler-Ruthton. Willmar placed first with a score of 136.700, followed by New Ulm (134.875), Redwood Valley in third (134.625), Benson/KMS in fourth (134.300), Windom/MLA in sixth (123.275), Pipestone in seventh (122.925) and RTR in eighth (110.200).

Marshall coach Larvita McFarquhar said she was proud of the way her team stepped up and challenged themselves with new skills.

“I was so proud of them, they all stepped up and did their best,” coach McFarquhar said. “They went out there and worked on their new skills.”

Cameen McFarquhar led the way for Marshall with an 8.275 on vault, 7.850 on the uneven bars, 8.300 on the balance beam and 8.500 on the floor exercise for an all-around score of 32.925. Clara Bader added scores of 8.325 on vault, 7.525 on beam, 7.900 on floor for an all-around score of 23.750 while Saphi McFarquhar had scores of 9.050 on bars and 8.975 on beam and Dylan Kack added a 7.750 on vault and 6.325 on beam.

Leah Matzner added an 8.350 on vault and a 6.950 on beam while Reagan Brandt had an 8.225 on floor to add to the Marshall effort.

Coach McFarquhar said their key throughout the meet was boiled down to one simple aspect.

“Teamwork,” she said. “Everyone had to step up because our main varsity person was hurt, so she could only do two events. Everyone stepped up and filled their roles of what they needed to do to get us into that fifth place position.”

Marshall will compete again on Thursday against Windom Area at 6 p.m. Coach McFarquhar said their biggest takeaway will be cleaning up their skills and continuing to build up their confidence.

“Just cleaning up some of the skills that we’re working on and just pushing them to believe in themselves and getting that confidence where it needs to be,” coach McFarquhar said.