The standard at Detroit Lakes is such that even the Lakers’ off days are markedly better than any other gymnastics team in the state.

The Lakers won their fourth consecutive Class 1A gymnastics team state championship, posting a team score of 150.925. Watertown-Mayer/Mound Westonka finished second with a season-high 147.425 while Mahtomedi was third with 146.45.

How good is Detroit Lakes? Its team score Friday was slightly off the level the Lakers have performed at in the past, yet still a whopping 3½ points better than the runner-up.

The Lakers set a Class 1A meet record with a 151.675 in last season’s state meet and topped 152 in the Section 8 finals.

“We were a little down, but we battled,” Lakers coach Steve Zamzo said. “It wasn’t the best that we’ve had, but it’s bound to happen.”

Senior captain Emma Disse said, “It was just kind of a goofy day. We had some goofy things happen, some little things that didn’t happen before. But today was definitely still a good day.”

Detroit Lakes was never seriously challenged, shrugging off the occasional misstep. The Lakers started on the vault, posting the highest team score in the event (37.95). That became a trend which they repeated in every rotation, finishing with the highest single-event score of the meet, a 38.025 in the floor exercise.

“This is a pretty strong mental team,” Zamso said. “They set a lot of goals for themselves. They’re always pushing themselves. They’re very driven and that helps them out a lot.”

Watertown-Mayer coach Steven Hangartner said the dominant Detroit Lakes team raised his team’s level of performance.

“We’ve been shooting for Detroit Lakes,” he said. “But we knew we’d need some help, like them having an off day. We hit 19 of 20 routines, but they’re great champions, great representatives.”