Raider earns JV state weightlifting championship

Kate Wiebe, an eighth grader at the Northfield Middle School and part of the middle/high school weightlifting team, who recently completed her season with the Northfield Gymnastics Club, claimed first place in the girls junior varsity 45 kg division at the 2023 state meet.

Her journey to the championship was unique, since she spent the better part of the season on the gymnastics team before opting to join the weight lifting team at Northfield for a late season run. In fact, Wiebe hit her state meet qualifying marks at a last chance meet in Lakeville on Feb. 25.

Due to her schedule with gymnastics, the Last Chance meet in Lakeville was Wiebe’s first-ever weightlifting competition — although she is no stranger to the sport since her father T.J. Wiebe is one of the Olympic weightlifting team’s assistant coaches and her older sister Tess Wiebe and older brother Jake Wiebe both competed for Northfield during their high school tenure.

“Kate is a multi-sport athlete and she has been training with us throughout the season as her schedule allowed,” Northfield head coach Noah Bachmeier said. “At the very beginning of the season, I jokingly said to her ‘Hey, we will just throw you in one meet to qualify for state or nationals and then you can go out and do it.’”

Bachmeier said that Wiebe was a little apprehensive at first about attempting to qualify at the Last Chance Meet, but after looking at the final rankings in Kate Wiebe’s weight bracket (45 kg), both coaches (Bachmeier and T.J. Wiebe) realized that she had a good shot of making the state meet.

“Kate at first was a little nervous because this isn’t her main sport, but she went out there and crushed it,” Bachmeier said.

In order to qualify for the state meet, athletes must hit certain qualifying marks. If they hit the “hard” qualifying mark, they receive and an automatic bid or they can also qualify if they reach minimum standards and no other athletes meet the higher “hard” standards.

“We were just going to try and get her to the minimum just to get her to go to state, but then she actually went and hit over the ‘hard’ total, so that was awesome,” Bachmeier said.

Kate Wiebe talked about her decision to make a run at the state meet, “It took a little bit of convincing, just because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing exactly, but I finally got around to it.”

Just in her first season of weightlifting competition, Kate Wiebe’s accomplishment is impressive since the state of Minnesota is one of the hotbeds of the sport as noted by Bachmeier.

“We have some of the best weightlifting in Minnesota. When you look at our state qualifying totals, some of them are actually national qualifying totals or even a little bit higher for some of the weight classes because weightlifting here is really competitive,” Bachmeier said. “There are some great schools across the state that consistently bring phenomenal athletes. Qualifying in Minnesota is a commendable action.”

Weightlifting and gymnastics may seem like an odd combination, but Bachmeier sees many of the skills used in both sports tend to compliment each other.

“Kate has been coming (to weightlifting) as her schedule allowed, but it was nice that the gymnastics and weightlifting go pretty hand in hand,” Bachmeier said. “If you would take gymnasts and have them all be weight lifters they would all be absolute studs, because they are so aware of their bodies. Being aware of your body in weightlifting translates well to gymnastics when it comes to the small cues, such as when you are on the bar and you are loosening your grip a little bit or your lats are not engaged, some of those really small cues can make a world of difference…that body awareness really goes hand-in-hand with each sport.

“Since gymnasts are already pretty flexible, it’s just a matter of teaching the movements (for weightlifting), and working on timing. I think with the help of her sister (Tess Wiebe) who lifted previously for us, she has gotten a little more exposure at a younger age than most people do and that certainly paid off.”

In addition to Kate Wiebe several other Northfield student-athletes have benefited from their work with the weightlifting team. Many use it to hone their strength and skills for other sports and a few are dedicated to just weightlifting. The team had almost 50 boys and girls practicing and competing on a regular basis throughout the 2022-23 season in Bachmeier’s first year as head coach.

“I am trying to encourage athletes from all of the sports to come out and try it during the winter season, because if you are playing lacrosse or running track in the spring, this is going to be the best thing you can do to set yourself up for that spring sport and also for coming off that fall sport — it is a real good transition to get you ready for whatever the spring or following fall may bring,” Bachmeier said.

“We have a few that are specializing in weight lifting but I’ve encouraged them to try out for any other sport. There is a lot of research that shows the benefits of being a two or three sport athlete, so coming into this I was encouraging all the students in my classes that they should check it out.”

Bachmeier said a few of his athletes were competing on a sports team for the first time along with the other team members who were seasoned high school athletes.

“It is really fun to see some new people getting into the fitness world…and to see a lot of returning athletes on the team working to improve and get better — I’m really excited to see how that carries over to their main sport,” Bachmeier said.

Kate Wiebe echoed her coach’s thoughts on how her weightlifting experience has been helped her work in gymnastics.

“I would say it (gymnastics and weightlifting) are not that different just because they use some of the same strengths. It will definitely make me a better gymnast just because it will make me a lot stronger and have better skills because I will be stronger,” Kate Wiebe said.

Kate Wiebe thinks she would like to continue her connection with competitive weightlifting in the future along with joining the gymnastic team at the high school next year. Bachmeier also sees some good things in her future in regards to weightlifting.

“If she continues down the path of weightlifting, she has the chance of doing some really great things in state and national competitions,” Bachmeier said.

Northfield was represented at the 2023 state meet by nine state qualifiers and seven of them earned medals. In addition to Kate Wiebe’s first place finish, Northfield’s Elliot Ness won the title in the girls Junior Varsity 64 kg division. In the boys 61 kg division, Spencer Mellgren also placed first.

Second-place finishes at the state meet were recorded by Mason Muench in the boys Junior Varsity 49 kg bracket and Katie Kick placed second in the girls Varsity 59 kg division. Northfield athletes earning third place finishes went to Caleb Grawe in the boys Varsity 67 kg division and Carson Muench in the boys Varsity 73 kg division.

As a team, the Raiders placed fourth with 22 points behind team leader Lakeville South with 61. Moorhead (45) and Cannon Falls (26) completed the top three spots ahead of Northfield.