Gymnastics is alive and well in Marshfield

MARSHFIELD – The best routine the Marshfield High School gymnastics team has to offer just might belong to the head coach.

The balancing act that Allie Siemandel has done is so good, in fact, that it has now earned her Wisconsin High School Gymnastics Association Coach of the Year honors for 2025.

Her job? Keep thirty student-athletes interested and actively involved in a sport that can use just five per event at a varsity meet.

Team scores are then comprised of the four highest scores from each of the four events.

“We have more than enough contributors on each of the events ready to go and capable of contributing in that varsity role for Marshfield,” Siemandel told Hub City Times on Dec. 17. “So it’s a little bit of a balance of having all the kids peak at just the right moment in their own respective individual talents, but then also putting the puzzle together so that when we hit conference, sectionals, state, the top five kids from Marshfield are ready to go.”

Since taking over the Marshfield program in 2015, Siemandel’s ability to put that puzzle together has resulted in three trips to the WIAA State Team Tournament.

The Tigers finished 8th in Div. 1 in 2019, 9th in Div. 1 in 2020 and 4th in Div. 2 in 2025.

“We’ve always had a ton of talented athletes that have had success in Marshfield, but since the last ten years of growth, we’ve had numerous team records, the first time that the Marshfield team got to represent at the WIAA tournament, numerous individual qualifiers through the years and Great Northern Conference champions as well, so we’ve really grown – both in our skill level and the number of athletes that are involved in gymnastics at Marshfield,” Siemandel told us. “Historically Marshfield has been able to field a large team in our sport, which has always been a great thing. But I think there’s a lot of excitement and interest, and as the team has become more successful at that sectional, conference, state level, I think it’s piqued the interest of other athletes to want to check it out.”

Siemandel came to Marshfield in 2012 for a job as a pediatric ICU nurse.

The Ashland native got involved in local gymnastics almost right away, and became the head coach at MHS in 2015.

In 2018, Siemandel opened Hub City Gymnastics, where 27 high school athletes currently train, in addition to housing a youth program.

Siemandel, who also competed in high school and club gymnastics, left the medical profession in 2019 to coach and be involved in gymnastics full-time.

Now she oversees one of the largest high school gymnastics programs in the state.

“We have athletes that train for all four events (Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, Floor Exercise) and we then have some athletes that are only training in some events,” Siemandel said. “This year we have a really deep group of kids that train all four events, so it kind of comes down to who’s got the most difficulties, the biggest start value. Those are the kids that are competing in our varsity invites. With thirty kids on the team, it is a little challenging to get opportunities for everyone to get the chance to compete, so we do seek out some extra opportunities to get more JV meets or JV2 meets or enter multiple teams into invites so that we can get all of our kids that chance to get in front of the judges and get scores.

“We have a ton of returning talent. We did not graduate any seniors last year, so we have our talented group from last year, and that includes some individual conference champions, some state qualifiers, and then we added some incredibly strong freshmen. One notable is Jazlyn Kurth, who in her first three freshmen meets has won the All-Around title in all three meets. We have five seniors this year. Of them, only one of them is training varsity All-Around, so we have an overall young group – mostly freshmen, sophomores and juniors – that are leading our varsity lineup right now.”

Siemandel isn’t just a coach either. She is actively promoting the sport to the rest of the community, too.

“I’m confident that if someone came out and saw what especially this team is capable of doing, they would be hooked,” she told us.    

Area residents have an opportunity to see the sport up close.

Marshfield will host one of five Div. 2 Sectional meets either on Thursday, Feb. 26, or Friday, Feb. 27, or Saturday, Feb. 28.

Teams that fall within that Sectional assignment — should they make it that far — include Marshfield and Siemandel’s hometown squad, the Ashland/Drummond/Mellen/Washburn coop.

Other teams that would compete in Marshfield if they advance that far are Medford/Colby, Bloomer/Cadott/Colfax, Grantsburg/Frederic/Siren/Unity, Menomonie, Rice Lake and River Falls.

The WIAA State Tournament will take place March 6-7 at Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High School.