RAPID CITY -- Rapid City Central gymnast Hollie Bloom almost wasn't even in Gillette, Wyo., this Saturday to win the Campbell County Early Bird all-around title. She almost wasn't even on the team

Bloom, a 16-year-old junior, has competed in club gymnastics for Just Jymnastics for about the past eight years and hadn't decided to go out for the Central team as a freshman or sophomore.

But a little prodding from longtime Cobbler head coach -- and for the past two years both Central's and Stevens' head coach -- Randy Hagen got Bloom out for the team and the Cobblers got their first all-around champion at an event since the Emily Heisinger-Melissa Stanton era of 1997-2000.

For that effort Bloom has been named the Rapid City Journal Athlete of the Week.

"Well, Hagen talked to me about every day about how we needed some more Central kids to go out for gymnastics, and he talked about how we need gymnastics in South Dakota to come up and be recognized a little more," Bloom said. "So I took all that into consideration, and here I am."

Bloom won the bars with a score of 9.050, the floor with a 9.150 and the vault with a 9.250 and finished third in the beam with a score of 9.075 to propel herself to her first high school championship in her first high school event with a score of 36.525. The experience is something that Hagen knew would be good for Bloom.

"I think sometimes athletes just need a change," Hagen said. "I think she wanted to try the high school (competition). I've coached club athletes and I've coached high school athletes, and the venue that high school brings has that interscholastic atmosphere -- the smell of the popcorn, the environment of all the cheering -- and I think that when an athlete experiences that, it just elevates expectation and really elevates that passion to want to compete."

One might think the early win might also elevate Bloom's own expectation for the rest of her high school season, but it seems to have only increased a sense of wary respect for what lies ahead.

"It was in Wyoming so I haven't really competed with a lot of South Dakota teams, so it tells me that I still need to improve even though I finished on top," Bloom said. "There's going to be a lot of girls that are going to be looking at me saying that they're just as good as me and that they can beat me, so it gives me a little bit of a push, definitely."

There seems to be something of an independent streak running through the Bloom family.

Hollie's other sport is also an individual one, pole vaulting, and her older brother Elliot was a state champion wrestler for the Cobblers. The gratification of achievement in an individual discipline is one of the big reasons that she enjoys them.

"You definitely have to have that competitive drive, and I do," Bloom said. "I just love to compete and trying to do the best I can. There's just a feeling of accomplishment when you've been working on a skill for months -- or even years -- and then you get it, you get that reward. It's the same with pole vaulting. You set a goal, or that height that you have to get over, and you work and work at it, and then when you do it you feel so good. I just love having that feeling."

Alot of that comes from watching her older brother and the successes that he had at Central and continues to have in college at Augustana.

"He's been kind of one of my influences for sure," Bloom said. "He gave me a lot of that competitive drive. Watching him get some of the highlights that he did his junior and senior years was great and now I feel like it's my time to kind of come up and do something."

Hagen thinks the potential is definitely there.

"She's a tremendous athlete," Hagen said. "Her best gymanstics is still ahead of her. There's a lot to work on from cleaning up routines to taking her skill level to the next level. When she does that she'll be every bit as good as any gymnast I've ever coached."

Contact Duffy at 394-8429 or at padraic.duffy@rapidcityjournal.com