Hello MAIZE and BLUE fans! It was nice seeing so many of you on Saturday. I thought that we had a pretty nice turnout for an intrasquad meet. I am always so happy when we get past this first "meet". I was pretty happy with how everyone did. We hit about 90% of our routines, which was awesome I thought. We know that we still have lots to work on though! It's early, so we have time to try to improve before we hit the road for our season opener in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nebraska is always a quality team and was in the Super Six with us last year. So we will get a real test right out of the gate!
I was really pleased with some of our freshmen on Saturday. Becky did great on all 4 events and scored just shy of a 39.00 all-around. Not bad for her first time in front of college judges. Huneth also did super! She did a slightly watered down vault but was really solid on the other three events. Jenny, Lindsey, Becca, Lauren and the rest of the gang of veterans looked good for this early, so we are optimistic about how the season looks for us this year!
This week we are really getting into finals, so we are trying to keep practice on a quality instead of quantity basis. Getting into the Christmas break healthy is our goal! But we will hit the ground running when we get back to campus right after the new year! Please stay tuned as we will be giving you weekly updates, starting the week before our first meet, Jan. 13th. We hope that you have marked your calendars with all of our home meets this year. We would love to see you! Don't forget to bring lots of friends with you!
We have just recieved our new Michigan gymnastics calendars hot off the
press, so please make sure to pick one up at the Michigan Sport Information
Department in the Hartwig
Building or at the Michigan Athletic Department Ticket Office. We will
also have them available at our first home meet on Jan. 27th at Crisler
Arena.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!
Bev
Hello! Hello! Hello! I hope this briefing finds all of you getting ready
to enjoy a relaxing Thanksgiving. I know our team and staff are all looking
forward to a nice break. The team has been working very hard, and I am
very excited about this group! We are getting ready for
the season and yesterday and today we are doing in gym intrasquads. I
was very impressed with our performance yesterday on vault and beam! We
had 9 10.0 start value vaults, which is the most we have had in a few
years. I think all but maybe 2 of them could be competed right now. The
others are very close. We also stuck 7 of 10 beam routines, which I was
pleased about since this was the first time we have preformed them with
everyone watching. Making beam routines everyday in practice is one thing
but preforming them with all eyes upon you is something different! Kudos
to all three freshmen for sticking their routines
cold! Go freshies!
Today we will do bars and floor. I hope that we will do as well as yesterday.
For most, floor is usually the hardest event to get ready. I love our
choreography this year! The girls used Dominic Zito again;he is really
awesome! The team drove all the way to Ohio to have their
routines done, but it was worth it. We have great potential on floor this
year, but a lot of our strength will depend on how we fair with injuries
and nagging chronic aches and pains. Some of our best tumblers are having
some back and tendinitis issues that have curtailed their training a bit.
So we will have to see after some rest over the break if we can get any
of those things feeling a little better.
We hope to be able to have everyone out there for the intrasquad on Dec 10th, but we won't push anyone if we don't feel they are ready just yet. We do not want to risk any injury for an intrasquad. The team really looks forward to this event each year, because it is their first chance to feel the adrenaline of a real meet. Performing is what it is all about in gymnastics! Training is the boring part, performing is when it gets fun!!
Well, I hope you all have fun plans for the holidays ahead. Personally, I am headed to North Carolina to spend the holidays at my sisters with family. I don't get to see them enough with all of us being spread out across the country. We all look forward to getting together, all 18 of us! Whew!
Take care and GO BLUE!!
I hope, no I expect, to see you all Dec 10th at Crisler Arena
at 4:00pm ;-)
Bev
Hello again, gym fans! Wow, the weeks are flying by. It's hard to believe
that we've been training for two months already. The countdown to the
intrasquad (Dec. 10th) has begun. Only six weeks left until we preview
our routines for the upcoming year. I think we will
be ready for the most part.
Vault is coming along for most of the team. I'm hoping that we will have a little bit more depth in this event this year, but it will depend on whether we can stay healthy and whether a few more people who are close to hitting a new vault can get over the hump.
Scott always has our bar routines ready, and I think we are looking pretty good from where I am across the gym. I don't want to give anything away here, but wait until you see Becky (one of our new freshmen) swing bars!
Beam is beam, just like every year. We just started doing full routines this week so that we can get through them. We'll see what kind of consistency we will have soon enough. I like what I've seen so far, and I'm am optimistic that we will be strong on this event this year.
Joanne has been getting the team routine ready over on floor. They're
starting to put tumbling into routines, but not all at once just yet.
This is always the hardest to do and takes the longest, but the goal is
to be doing full sets by Thanksgiving. I really like the
choreography again this year! I think that our routines will be real crowd
pleasers! I'm seeing a lot of big tumbling passes from several people
this year, so I'm hoping we will be able to compete a lot of what I'm
seeing in the gym. The injury factor always plays a big role on this event,
so we are trying to get in the reps we need, keeping the gymnasts on softer
surfaces to reduce some of the overuse type of aches and pains.
So that is a brief update on what's been happening in the gym. We have also started a new conditioning program that I am really excited about. It seems to be going really well so far. The team is working hard, and we can see marked improvement. I feel like we are actually doing less at one time, but we are now doing it a little bit more often and spread out between our warm-up and at the end of practice. I hope that we will be in our best shape ever when the season starts.
Well, I guess that is about it for now. I'll be back with another update in a few more weeks! Until then, take care and Go Blue!!
Bev
Hello Michigan gymnastics fans! Here we are already into a new school year and training hard for what we hope will be another great season. I hope you all had a wonderful summer! It was a busy summer for myself and my staff, but it was really good. The girls on the team all seem to have had a fun, relaxing summer as well. They came back to campus ready to go and excited for the upcoming season.
It was amazing how early the recruiting got serious this year! The new March phone call and April visit really got things moving, and the result was a lot more pressure on recruits to commit early. We have received verbal commitments from 4 pretty special young women, but you will have to remain in suspense until after the early signing date in November because of NCAA rules regarding announcements etc...
We have had a few weeks now to get to know our new freshmen, and I could
not be more pleased with how hard they are working and what absolutely
wonderful people they are! The staff is really enjoying practice everyday,
and I think this will be the best overall team chemistry we have had in
a while. We are seeing a strong commitment and dedication
from every single member of this team and that will carry us far!
I realize that this briefing was short and sweet, but practice calls and there will be lots more opportunities for me to give you all the inside scoop on Michigan gymnatics in the coming months, so stay tuned.
Go Blue!!
Bev