A big THANK YOU to all who came out and supported us for the WVU meet and the first annual Coaches Care Challenge! The meet was a good one for us, and we were able to raise at least $4,000 for the Coach Carr Cancer Fund. We still have several sponsorship forms out in the comunity, so we hope we will continue to see those being returned with donations. It was a very special night all the way around. We were able to honor many cancer survivors in the audience, including the mom's of two of our very own athletes, who are breast cancer survivors! On a different note, we were able to honor Elise's brother and three of his friends for their service to our country in the war in Iraq. Taylor Ray is an Army Ranger, the equivalent to a Navy Seal. He and his friends served right in the thick of the battle, and we are so happy to have them back on US soil! The audience gave them a standing ovation, and it gave me chills!! Wow! The whole night was incredibly moving and made me stop to take note of what is really important in life.
We had good vaults, but no stuck landings this week. This is still an
area where we need to improve if we want to challenge for a national title.
Bars went well, and we did stick a few dismounts on this event. I felt
the judging was a little strange here, but hey they are the
professionals. Beam ROCKED!!! The routines were incredibly solid and dismounts
stuck. We scored well, but I thought they were even a little strict on
this event as well. Our floor seems to be getting better each of the last
few weeks. I am pleased to see this event finally becoming what I knew
it could be for us this year. We scored our season high 49.40!
Looking ahead, we get a weekend off! We will really benefit from some
rest and relaxation! Our training schedule this week is to practice on
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This will give the girls three day weekends
on both ends of the week. Since we don't get to take a spring break, this
is the best we can do. We will go back to our regular training schedule
the week of spring break, and we look forward to our last home meet on
March 4th against the Univ. of Iowa. I'll talk more about that next week,
but until then GO BLUE!!! Thanks for your support and talk to all of your
friends about the March 4th meet because it will be your last
chance to see Elise Ray and the other seniors compete at Michigan.
Talk to you next week,
Bev
Hello again to all of our true blue fans out there! Week 6 is behind
us now, and I am happy to report that our team pulled through once again!
This is the time of the season when we start to feel all of the aches
and pains of competing every weekend. We are trying to rotate
some people in and out of our lineups so that some girls have an opportunity
to rest. It has been so nice to have the depth to be able to do that.
Even without our quote "full strength" lineup, the girls have
still managed to hang right in there above the 196.00 mark. I am so proud
of this group of young women! I can't tell you how fun it has been for
us as a staff this year working with this team.
UNH ran a great meet, and it was really fun personally to be able to see Beth (Amelkovich) Aparo! For those of you who don't remember or haven't been around long enough, Beth was a Wolverine. I am pleased to report that she is very happily married to Brian Aparo, a former Michigan wrestler, and pregnant with their first baby! She is due in May and looks absolutely adorable! She has been coaching as an assistant at UNH for 5 years now. Wow, I can't believe it has been that long since she was in a Michigan leotard. I also got to see a few other Michigan alums in the crowd: Diane (Armento) Metcalf, who is also pregnant; Dianna (Ranelli) Hemboldt, who was there with her little baby girl; Christine Mantilia and her parents; and our former team manager Jessica Steyers. It was like a reunion!
We started the meet on floor and ended on beam. Yes, again! This has become our favorite rotation, because we seem to have to do it just about every meet it seems like. We had a great start on floor and were able to rest Shanna Duggan, Elise Ray, and Katie Lieberman. So we saw some new faces out there. Carol McNamara was back in as well as Lauren Mirkovich. We also had Becca back in after being out last weekend with the flu. Maybe the most exciting part was that Sarrie Rubin preformed an exhibition routine for the first time this season and it was really good! She was pretty nervous, but I think she surprised herself at how well she did. I was so proud of her!
Vault went pretty well, and we had one fall on bars that we did not have
to count. Beam was a stressful ending to the meet because our first gymnast
up fell, so that really put the pressure on the remaining five. They came
through with flying colors! These ladies are really a team this year.
They have continually had each others backs, and it has been great
to see. We ended the meet with a 196.225 which holds us steady at the
#2 spot for one more week. If we were using the RQS system right now,
we would be ranked #1 but we will have to see what happens after next
weekend.
We will be hosting West Virginia University for the first annual Coaches Care Challenge this Friday night at Crisler Arena. I am extremely proud of this event. We are going to be having a number of fund-raising opportunities at this meet including: a silent auction (with some really great stuff I might add), an inspirational banner, and a special cancer survivor recognition ceremony at the end of the meet. Lots of other really great stuff will be happening as well, so come early to take advantage of some of these wonderful opportunities as well as to see a great meet! On a personal note, this meet will be special for me, since I was a gymnast at WVU and was coached by Linda Burdette, who is still the head coach of the Mountaineers!
So Friday night at 7:30pm at Crisler Arena. Be there. Go Blue!
Bev
What a busy, but exciting weekend for our program!!! Friday night was
a great night all the way around! We broke our all-time attendance record
with over 5,000 people at the meet, and we beat the UCLA Bruins, who have
won 3 of the last 4 NCAA team championships. It just doesn't get much
better than that! The people who came out got a great show. A
large crowd stayed until well after the awards, just standing around and
talking.
The meet started off on a great note for us on vaulting, as we put together
our best performance of the season on that event! So we started off with
a nice lead as we went into our second event. Bars went well once again;
a very consistent performance. Going into beam, we had a lot of confidence
I think, but I could see more nerves than usual also. We survived beam
but had to count a 9.525, so going into floor the teams were tied! The
fans were going crazy; it made for an incredible finish as Michigan went
to floor and UCLA went to beam. We responded with our best floor performance
of the season! UCLA had some
trouble on the beam, and the final score was 196.25 to 195.25.
Our team didn't have long to enjoy the win, as we loaded the bus on Sat.
afternoon to head to Kalamazoo for the annual Michigan Classic meet with
all 5 teams in the state of Michigan. I was worried about coming off such
a big win and what our team would be like on Sunday. I have to admit,
it was not an easy meet. We seemed to struggle through the first
three events, having a fall on each and then needing to hit the other
five routines. We managed to keep it together though, and wow did we hit
beam to finish the meet!! By far, it was our best of the season, and we
tied our best ever team score in that event with a 49.525!! I was so proud
of all of them, as they mounted one by one and worked through there routines
like they were on the floor. As a result, we ended up with our highest
team score of the season! I couldn't have asked for more out of them.
It ended up being a fantastic weekend, and we all took yesterday off.
Now we prepare to travel to New Hampshire for another quad meet. I just hope we can put together all four events in the same meet and keep improving a little each week. We are off to a great start!
Bev
Hello again and thanks for following along with these briefings. We had a very nice trip this past weekend. All the way around it was a lot of fun. We had direct flights to and from Utah, so it made for simple travel. Thanks to the new portable DVD players, watching movies makes the time fly by. Well, almost. We got in some shopping and were able to take in the beauty of the mountains on some nice sunny days.
The meet was really awesome! Both teams had very good meets and gave
the better than 10,000 spectators a real show. We learned how important
it is to stick our dismounts, as the difference in the meet was only .35,
in Utah's favor. We are very happy though with a good away score, which
will help us as the season progresses. We will be working hard on
landing drills and trying to decrease the amount of steps on our dismounts.
I think we have proven to be a much more consistent team this year, and
now we just need to start fine tuning the little things that make the
difference between really good teams and the great teams.
Vault, bars, and beam went about how they have been going but we finally
hit floor! It has been amazing to me just how consistent our scoring has
been in our first 4 meets. This was our high score at 196.525, but the
difference between what we had been scoring and this
meet was not counting a fall on floor.
I am really excited for Friday night when UCLA comes into town. We have some pretty cool things planned to salute all of the Olympians that will be there. I hope we have an awesome crowd for this one!!! So bring ALL of your friends and try to get there a little early so parking isn't a problem. Our meet is scheduled at the same time as the Michigan vs. Michigan State hockey game so parking will be first come first serve! This should be an outstanding meet with UCLA being the 2004 National Champions and holding that #1 spot up until this week. If my calculations are correct using the total season average, which is how we are all ranked right now, we should be #2 and UCLA #3 going into Friday night's competition. It doesn't get much better than that. It will be fun for us to have just come off of a meet with Utah, who is now #1, and go up against UCLA, who was #1 until this week.
Our special celebrity guest is Dominique Moceanu! She will be signing autographs before the meet, so that is just another reason to get there early for this one. Can't wait to see you all on Friday!!!
Bev
Wow what a great crowd!! Well over 4,000 was the report I got. Thanks
to the hard work and enthusiasm of the K-grams people! They said we broke
a record for the largest attendance for a regular season meet! I just
want to thank all of the K-grams people and also all of the K-grams kids
who came out for the meet. I think everyone had a blast and lots
of kids took home some great prizes. My team loved preforming in front
of such a fun and enthusiastic crowd!
I was once again impressed with the composure of my team. Penn State was a great opponent. They were doing some big skills and doing them well. They will definitely be the team to watch out for at Big Tens this year! We started out pretty well on vault but not quite as sharp as we have been the last two weeks. With the exception of Lauren Mirkovich, who started us off with a nice handspring front pike and nailed it cold! Bars was once again a solid event for us, with each routine building on the last. If we start sticking some more dismounts, this will be a great event for us. Beam is getting progressively more solid each week. I can see the confidence improving, so I like that a lot! Floor was the event that again gave us some problems. It is odd though because it had been different people each week who have had struggled. I think that these problems are hopefully behind us now and that we will put it all together this weekend. I know that floor will eventually be our best event so I am not concerned about the early problems. It was so nice to see Elise back in the floor lineup! Her routine is so awesome this year and she has even added more difficulty than she has had in the past.
Looking ahead to this weekend, we are headed to Utah. A long trip and
a two-hour time change, but we have historically done pretty well there
and enjoy competeing in such a wonderful gymnastics environment. They
have sell out crowds who really appreciate good gymnastics, which we hope
to show them. This will be a great test for us with Utah being ranked
#2. We won't have much time to get our breath before returning home to
meet
UCLA who is ranked #1. UCLA lost to Utah in the season opener at Utah,
so we will see how we do soon enough.
Thanks to all who came out to see us last weekend. Don't forget to check in next week to see how things went in Utah, and I hope to see you all at Crisler Arena at 7:30pm on Feb 4th to watch our meet with the UCLA bruins!! Go Blue!!!
Bev
Well, the second week of the 2005 season is now behind us, and it was a very bittersweet weekend. We had another very good meet, and I am so pleased with how the team is really pulling together and performing. We did however have an injury to one of our seniors. Chelsea Kroll ruptured her achilles tendon in the 30 sec touch warm up on floor just before we started the meet.
There were four teams in the meet, and our first event was floor. It
was a major blow, and it is very hard when something like that happens
to try to get the rest of the team's focus shifted back to their own performance.
I was very proud of the team! They started out a bit
shaky but really pulled it together and got better with each event throughout
the meet. I think this team really has what it takes to make this one
of our best seasons ever!
Lindsey Bruck won the all around with a 39.125! We had event champions on vault (Katie Lieberman and Jenny Deiley, 9.875), bars (Elise Ray, 9.925), beam (Lindsey Bruck, 9.85), and floor (Jenny Deiley, 9.825)! Lots to be proud of!!! Chelsea is doing pretty well. She is already trying to focus on what she can do to contribute to the team in a new role. She is a really special person, and I know she will continue to be a great asset to us throughout the year!
This Friday night, we host Penn State University, another team that has
started off strong. They are looking to have their best season this year.
They have some great freshman who will help them a lot, and I look forward
to a great competition. We will have only three practice days this week
because we will take Thursday off to be rested for Friday
night. Friday night is also our annual K-grams night! So we look forward
to having a great crowd and lots of fun with Rishi leading some fun and
always interesting games during the touch warm-ups! We love our relationship
with K-grams, and it is always one of our best meets.
I'm not sure yet what to expect in terms of possible line up changes.
The girls have made it hard for us, because there is not really an easy,
clear cut decision on who should go in on beam and floor. This is actually
a wonderful problem to have, because it means we have depth. However,
it makes life a little more stressful on the coaches until the decision
gets
made.
I hope to see you all at Crisler Arena on Friday night! The meet starts at 7:30pm, so don't be late!!!
Bev
Wow, what an exciting first meet of the season! Thanks to all of you
who came out to see us. It was a great crowd and a fun meet. I am very
pleased with our overall performance for the first meet. I thought that
we preformed extremely well on vault and bars to start off the
meet. It was great to have Lindsay Bruck in the vault lineup. She will
be a very valuable addition to our line up as we go through the season.
Katie Lieberman did a great job in her first meet as well with a 9.85.
Shanna Duggan - wow, she is a tremendous help to us on this event. It
is pretty exciting, and we certainly hope to have Elise back in there
before too long.
Bars went well also. This was the event that, if I had any concerns, it was here. The team did really well. Kara Rosella started us off with a nice routine, and they just kept hitting from that point. We were all pretty excited after that and going into beam. Our beam can certainly still improve. We did not count a fall but had some nervous bobbles here and there. We are a great beam team, but we just need to settle in and start to show a little more confidence on this event.
I think we all thought we were home free when we took the floor. I also
think we all learned not to count our chickens. Nellie Kippley once again
started us off with a nice clean set. Carol McNamara came out and hit
a routine with her brand new full-in for her first pass!
Chelsea was awesome! Then we had two very uncharacteristic falls on otherwise
gorgeous routines. But Becca brought us back to finish the meet with a
really nice routine. So I think it was a great learning experience for
us, and I think it also will keep us hungry for more going into the next
few meets. I think we all can see what our potential is for this season,
and it is very exciting.
We will train this week and get excited about our first road trip of the year. We will take off Friday afternoon to head to Columbus, OH. Buckeye territory! We will also be meeting Minnesota and Maryland in this quad meet. A nice short trip for us to get started. Close enough for any of you who would like to make a road trip. (hint hint) We would love to see you there. I don't expect big changes in our line-ups, but we may shift one or two things here or there depending on how practice goes this week. We hope to improve on our first performance and keep this ball rolling.
Well, I'm off now to work on practice plans for the week, so stay tuned.
Go Blue!
Bev
Happy New Year!!!! The countdown is on as we approach the kickoff to our season. Our training before the break was good, but difficult. We were working around final exams and some pretty sore and tired bodies. Nevertheless, I was proud of the effort the girls put in!
Our holiday break was wonderful! Everyone got to spend some time at home,
and I hear Sarrie even had a surprise trip to the Bahamas! Must be tough
huh? I myself spent the
holidays at my sister's home in Trumbull, CT. Eighteen family members
converged on my sister and her family. It is a good thing that we are
a close knit group!
The team returned back to campus for our first practice on Jan 1st.
feeling much better and ready to go. We still have a few people with nagging
types of aches and pains, but we are optomistic that we can overcome that
and we keep our fingers crossed that they will be the extent of what we
have to deal with this season. Our first three practices have gone well,
and
I believe that we are ready for our first meet on Jan 7th. Our line ups
are still up in
the air but coming together over the next couple of days. Some of you
may have read that Elise tweaked her shoulder at the end of her floor
routine in the intersquad. She is feeling better and we hope that she
will compete on at least on bars this Friday night. We just want to be
conservative as it will be a long season, and March and April are our
key months, not January!!
Nebraska will be some great competiton for us. There will be no easing
into things, we have to hit the ground running. I read some of Dan Kendig's
comments after their intersquad and he feels they are ready for us. It
should be a really good matchup. They will have Richelle Simpson competing
for them again this season. She was the NCAA All-Around
Champion from 2003 who sat out last year with a knee injury. She should
be exciting to watch.
So come on out to Crisler Arena this Friday night at 7:30pm and cheer on the Maize and Blue!!!!!!!! I look forward to seeing you there!!!
Bev