Jello legs? No problem. Intense spotlight? Bring it on.

There was simply no way Hailey Brinkman was going to let this opportunity get away from her.

The Melrose senior pulled out her best when it counted most, posting a winning score of 9.625 on the balance beam -- the very last routine of the meet -- to edge Detroit Lakes' Jessica Stelter for the all-around championship at the Class 1A gymnastics state meet Saturday at the University of Minnesota Sports Pavilion.

"I think that was my best routine of the season," said Brinkman, one day after leading Melrose to its first team championship since 1995. "I scored a 9.8 in that event in [the Section 6] meet, but, within everything surrounding it here, this was my best one."

Brinkman, who also won the gold medal in the uneven bars (9.7) and finished tied for first, with Austin's Sela Fadness, in the floor exercise (9.65), admitted that two days' worth of competition had taken a toll on her body. It would have been understandable had she faltered.

"No way. There was no way I was going to let it get to me," she asserted of the attention focused on her. "Jello legs or not, I had to block it all out."

"I think my vault could have been better," she said of her 9.175 score, "but I don't think I could have picked a better way to end my senior year."

Return pays offAustin's Fadness finished 10th in the Class 1A all-around as an eighth-grader in 2010. She left high school for club gymnastics in 2011 but returned this year after shattering her left elbow.

It proved to be the right move: She tied for first in the floor exercise with a 9.65 and third in the all-around with a 37.75.

"I'm glad I came back," Fadness said. "The level of skill here today was great. This was the hardest meet I've been in."

Fadness was asked if she would consider a return to club gymnastics. "No, I'm coming back to high school," she said. "I want to do other sports in school. And I want to win the all-around. That's my goal now."

JIM PAULSEN