Monday, April 19, 2004 (last regular weekly briefing)
We are back from LA safe and sound! We had a very nice week but from what I hear the weather was just as nice or nicer here at home? After we arrived on Tuesday we just kind of hung out and relaxed after a long trip. We went to dinner at the Chart House. It is a very nice restaurant on the ocean. Don Shepherd treated us all to Lava Cake for desert! We enjoyed that very much!!!! Wed. we did a little window shopping on Rodeo Dr. before practice.
Thursday we competed in the evening session with some other really strong teams. We had a good meet but struggled with sticking landings and that made the difference in us making super six. UCLA, Alabama, and Utah were the three who made it in out of our session. So we will end this season ranked 8th. I guess it is kind of nice to be disappointed about finishing as the 8th ranked team in the country! Our team knows they are better than that and we have to start thinking about what we need to do next year to get back into the super six!
Since we did not compete Friday night we had some free time on our hands so the girls got to hang out with their parents all day. Sat. night was really fun! Elise was first up on beam and she did a gorgeous routine. Her score of 9.9 held for a third place finish, but it would have been interesting to see if she would have gone closer to the end of the line-up if she would have finished higher??? Lindsey did a great job also! I was so impressed with her composure as a freshman to go out there and nail a routine like that. Then we went to bars!!! Elise did an absolutely flawless routine and nailed her dismount cold!!! She was toying with the idea of competing a double twisting double layout instead of her usual single twist dismount. She decided to go with the single and it sure paid off!!! Another national championship title for her scrapbook!!! I was so happy to see her make the climb from being out last year with the injury to standing on the 1st place podium once again!!!
So all in all not exactly what we had hoped for but we have nothing to hang our heads about either!! We will be having our end of year banquet on May 1st. I hope to see you there.
Now that the season is over I will not be writing my briefing weekly. However, I'll check in a couple times over the summer to let you all know what is going on so stay tuned for the updates!! I have enjoyed talking with you all this season and I look forward to continuing this again next year! Have a great summer and stop by and see us if you are in the neighborhood!!
Bev
Hello once again, today is our last training day for the year before we depart campus tomorrow morning for UCLA!!! I know everyone is excited to get there and get things underway. Today will be about confidence building and getting fired up for this Championship event! We will need to be on physically, mentally, and emotionally! We have practiced many hours to get ready for this competition and I know that physically we are ready! We need the team that showed up at our Big Ten meet to make another appearance Thursday night in the prelim round. If they do I feel good about making it into the top three and moving on to Friday's Super Six!
When we arrive we will use the remainder of Tuesday to get acclimated to the time change and hopefully enjoy some sunshine. Wed. we begin having press conferences and practice rounds etc... We will compete on Thursday evening at 7pm. If we make it into the top three that night we will advance to Friday at 7pm for the Super Six team finals. Saturday morning they are having an All-American Celebration at the Fox Theater. This is when the All-American awards will be handed out and they will recognize the coach of the year etc... Sat. night is individual event finals. The top 4 athletes on each event from each session on Thursday will compete again on that event on Sat. night to determine who is the national champion. The All-Around Champion is determined from the highest score on Thursday from both sessions. I know this all seems a little complicated, but it works!
Well I guess I just have to say wish us luck!! Keep your fingers crossed and hopefully we will do as well as I know we can!! I'll have at least one more briefing after we get back next week to fill you in on all the scoop.
Bev
Sorry I am a day late with the briefing, but yesterday we spent the entire day scurrying to get all of our arrangements made for Nationals. Travel, entry forms, etc... We were having a terrible time getting our travel booked. Actually we still don't have it finalized. Anyway, we made it!! Whew!
It was a tough regional just as we expected it would be. I have to say that I think this has been the strongest regional I have ever been a part of, top to bottom. All of the teams looked good. Bars seemed to be the back breaker for everyone. I think Georgia was the only team to not count a fall on bars? Iowa State and Penn State both had very strong showings!! It came right down to the last performer on each team to determine who was going on, and who was staying home. It was really hard to be sitting on a bye that last rotation and not able to have any effect on what was happening with PSU on beam or Iowa State on vault. It was very stressful!!
We are just so happy to have a chance at new life, and another opportunity to perform like we did at our Big Ten Championship. If we can do that I am optimistic about our chance to get into the Super Six, but we will absolutely have to hit!!! We are in the toughest session with 4 of the top 7 teams in addition to us and Arizona State. We also drew the rotation starting on Floor and ending on Beam. The same rotation we had at Regionals! This will be a challenge but hey, we made it work at Regionals right! Well I have to run and try to finalize a few more things for our trip. See you in LA!!!
Bev
Even though we had an off week things around here continue to progress. We had a good week of practice and I think the team really benefited from such a fun wonderful experience at Big Ten's!!! On a personal note last week was kind of rough. My 4 year old son went into the hospital with a possible abscessed tonsil. I missed two days of practice sitting at the hospital taking care of him. I am so lucky to have Scott and Joanne to take control of things here!! They did a great job as usual and no one missed a beat. It is so nice not to have to worry about the team when a family crisis comes up!!
This week we will get to train until Wed and then we will leave Thursday night for State College, PA. We know we have our work cut out for us. We know how strong Georgia is, but Iowa State and Missouri have also been putting up consistently high scores all season. Penn State is quite strong, too, as they showed at our Big Ten meet!! I am confident that if we perform the way we did at Big Ten's that we will be on our way back to LA for another National Championship, but, we definitely have to earn it!! We have had an up and down season in terms of consistency so we will have to put together another 24 routine meet to have a chance!! We are hoping to get Calli back into a few more line ups as well but we will have to see how this week goes with her training. She made some progress at the end of last week so I hope she comes in feeling good today. We'll see? Chelsea seems to be managing her knee issues pretty well so we are hopeful that she can stay in the floor line-up from here on out?? Our success at the end of the season here will depend on our ability to field our strongest line up so keep you fingers crossed for us to stay/get healthy!!
Well that is all for now! Hope to see you in State College.
Bev
Hello, Hello, Hello!!! We finally did it! We put together 24 routines in one meet and stuck lots of dismounts to boot!!! It was sooooooooooo much fun!!!! We had a GREAT parent and booster contingent in the crowd and there were AWESOME!!!! Thank you to all of you who were there! You can't believe how much you guys helped us on the competition floor. The team is so appreciative!!!!
I have known all year that this is what we were capable of. I see this in practice all the time. I just couldn't figure out why we were not doing it in meets. We have worked and worked and finally just when we need it the most we put it together. Whew! I know the team had so much fun! I hope that feeling of success is what we need to keep breeding this same kind of competition aggressiveness. We had a lot of emotion on the floor and it was coming from everyone. It all helps - that is for sure.
There are just too many highlights to talk about! Becca started us off with a gorgeous stuck hand front pike on vault, little Mac goes 9.90 to tie for third with Elise, and Lauren hits her hand front pike with a half to finish the vault rotation. Bars - oh my, 49.625! Every single routine was awesome top-to-bottom finishing with Elise's first 10.0 of her career on that event!!! Beam, two small wobbles out of all five counting scores. Pretty impressive. We just looked like we were in command of our routines! (Like it should be.) Floor was very solid. Carol started us off with 9.85 and each score climbed from there! It was just so much fun!!
Minnesota ran a great meet! The awards presentation was really nice and made everyone feel extra special! The competition this year was really good. Several teams had great meets and looked very good. Iowa had a fantastic regular season and came in ranked ahead of us. They started on floor and their first three events were really good! After one event they led us by .075, after two we led them by .15, and after three we led by .375 - so going into the last event it was still anybody's meet. They had to count a fall on beam which was unfortunate. But we finished great on floor so it didn't make a difference in the outcome of the meet. Penn State also looked very good! They hit the best meet of their season as well I understand from talking to their coaches. I was very impressed with their vault an floor especially. I believe that Minnesota, Michigan State, and Illinois all made it through counting no falls in the meet. They also looked strong. Looks like Ohio State only counted one fall. The Big Ten is a strong conference! We are proud to be a part of it!! Look out regionals here we come!!
I predict that their could be a lot of shake ups at the regional sites this year. The rankings of teams being seeded into the regionals is very interesting. Look for several upsets and maybe some unseeded teams earning spots to go to nationals!!!! We sure hope to be one of them!!!! We will be going to Penn State and competing on April 3rd at 6:00pm. Not too far of a drive people, so check your calendars and hop in the car and come be part of the awesome booster/fan contingent that we need so much!!!! I hope to see you there!
Bev
Hello again friends, family, and supporters of Michigan women's gymnastics!! I am sorry I am getting this in a little late this week. Mon and Tue were a blur with meetings and paperwork needing to be turned in for Big Ten's.
I was really pleased with how we finished our regular season at home on Senior night! For the most part we got ourselves back on track and showed a lot more confidence. We know we still have to stick more vaults and dismounts if we want to compete with teams like Alabama but I was pleased that we did not count any major breaks this time out. We had a nice tribute to our seniors before the meet which ALWAYS chokes me up! It is really hard to spend so much time with these ladies and then realize they are done after this season. Chris had a great night she is doing really well on her two events. Chelsea had her best bar routine of the year I think and beam was really good also. Jenny is getting better and more confident each meet with big improvements in her floor routine. Elise was her usual beautiful self. She is getting better at sticking her dismounts and her scores are reflecting that.
Well here we are!! Post season begins now!!! I think we are ready. This has been an interesting season to say the least. Full of ups and downs, but I think we are back on the upswing. This team has the potential to do great things. We can't survive on potential, however - we need to put out 24 routines every meet from here on out. The team is well aware of that and I think they will rise to the occasion.
Scoring around the country has been absolutely crazy this year (more than ever)!!! The rankings at this point really mean nothing except who will get seeded into the 6 regional sites. If we don't end up getting seeded we will go to Penn State and wait to see which three teams get seeded into our region. It is impossible to try to guess who they might be. There will still be a lot of shuffling around since the conference meets still count towards the RQS. The RQS is calculated by taking your three highest away scores, then the next three highest scores home or away, then dropping the high score and averaging the remaining five scores. For us the best case scenario would be that we beat our highest score of the season which we are currently not able to count (197.125). If that happens then we would have to throw it out as our high score and we could count our five top scores as of today which would put our RQS at a 196.75. That RQS would probably (?) get us ranked somewhere between 14th and 18th??
We would then be seeded into one of the six regional sites which are: Penn State, North Carolina State, LSU, Univ. of Arizona, Denver, or Oregon State. The good news would be that there would only be two other higher ranked teams placed with us. The bad news is that we could go 3 times zones away?? If we go to Penn State the good news is easier travel etc... The bad news is that three teams ranked ahead of us come into our region and we have to beat at least two of them to move on. Best case scenario, we improve our ranking but still get seeded to Penn State. So we would only have two other top ranked teams entering our region. Who knows, I get gray worrying about it so I try not to!!! We will see soon enough!! Stay tuned!
Bev
Well we are back from sunny California. Our flight out was fine but long. Saturday was absolutely gorgeous! We took the team to Venice Beach to do some shopping and people watching. We got to walk on the beach a little and enjoyed seeing all of the surfers. We rested a little at the hotel and then went to dinner at Benihana's Japanese Steak House. That was fun also.
Our meet was on Sunday and again we had some outstanding performances, but our team score came up short of what we set out to do. Becca had a great meet! She did her handspring front pike 1/2 vault for the first time and preformed it very well. She also nailed floor with a few great changes in her dance that spiced things up a little. Beam was pretty solid for our whole team this week so I was pleased with that. Jenny Deiley performed in the all-around for the first time this season and hit all four routines. Some were a little shaky but she hasn't been perfecting like everyone else for the past 8 weeks either, so I'm sure her performances will only continue to improve from here.
Friday night is Senior Night already!!! I can't believe that the season has gone by this quickly. We have a special presentation planned for our senior class and will be honoring them during the opening march in so don't be late for the meet. Every year this is such an emotional time for me. We spend 4 years getting to know each of these women and we go through so much together. It is rewarding to see them graduate and move on to do wonderful things. We just got to see some alumni while we were in California and that was fun. Bridget Knaeble, Chrissy Michaud, Angelia Dever-Williams, and Wendy Comeau were all there and I loved getting a chance to see them all!!!
Well it was a long flight home last night (red eye) and we are all exhausted so that is it for now. I can't wait to see all of you Friday night at Crisler Arena at 7:00pm for Senior Night vs. Alabama!!!!
Bev
I am going to keep this week's briefing short and sweet. The competition last weekend against Georgia didn't exactly get us back on track like I hoped that it would. However, I think we took away a lot of good from that experience. I know that our team is not happy about the way they have been performing the last three meets. The good news is that they haven't given up on themselves!! They still believe, as do I, that they can pull it together and show everyone what they are really capable of. Our Michigan teams have always dug in when the going got tough! I don't think this year will be any exception to that.
Looking at the spring, I did want to encourage our fans to come out to our post-season meets, beginning with the Big Ten's in a few weeks. Our 10.0 Booster Club and parents always arrange great trips out to the sites, and they will hook you up with hotel information, etc. Because they have to book those rooms now, please contact them soon (info on the website). It is always great to see (and hear!) you at those away trips, and of course the girls love all the support, too, and it means so much to them!
Our trip to UCLA this weekend will be critical to our RQS score for ranking and national seeding to the regional competition. With only two remaining regular season meets left and then Big Ten's to count for our regional qualifying score, it is very important that we put it together for the next three meets. Keep believing in us!! Stay tuned for further updates!! Check out the UCLA meet on line at UMGYM.COM Sunday the 7th at 2:00pm (LA time). Talk to you next week.
Bev