Hello Women's Gymnastics fans! First of all, let me apologize for not getting out a briefing since Big Tens. It has been a little crazy here hosting Regionals etc... Anyway, let me go back and say just a few words about Big Tens and Regionals.
Big Tens was obviously not the high point of our season. However, I believe that things happen for a reason and maybe that has helped us to refocus on what we have to do to take care of business for the rest of our postseason. We started out really well on vaulting! Our scores did not reflect the quality of our vaults! That is all I'll say about that. Our bars rotation was not stellar, but we survived without counting any falls. I'm still not sure what happened to us on beam. We were prepared, we seemed confident and ready to do what we have done each weekend all season long. But one then two then three and yes, then four all in a row took a fall. It was like a very bad dream. I actually did pinch myself but guess what...I was awake! We counted three falls in that one event which put us completely out of the running for our eighth Big Ten Championship. We came back on floor however, and showed the character and fight that this Wolverine team has!! Finishing fourth was a big disappointment no doubt, but I was very proud of the way that we finished the meet! Sometimes beam is just beam. I am not concerned, because I know we have a very good beam team! They just didn't have a good day.
Next came two weeks of practice since we had a weekend off before Regionals. This felt like a long two weeks! The disappointment of Big Tens just kind of hung there. But as I said, I think it made everyone do a gut check to see what we had left inside to finish this season. We came out at Regionals and showed that we could bounce back! Again we started on vault and did very well! This time bars went very well also, and we were building momentum. We started out beam with a fall, just like we had at Big Tens. However, this time Jenny stopped the bleeding right away by going up there and hitting her routine and getting us back on track! We hit the rest of our routines and left the event breathing a sigh of relief!
The meet was very close from start to finish between Michigan, Utah,
and Auburn. Auburn took themselves out of it on bars in the third rotation.
But Utah was right with us the entire way. They ended on beam and we ended
on floor. They counted one fall on beam, so all we
had to do was hit floor! Well anyone who knows gymnastics knows you NEVER
say "all we have to do is hit" because it just isn't ever that
simple!!! We had two routines touch a hand down on their last tumbling
pass, which has not happened to us all season until then. We
counted one of those hand touches but still pulled out the win by 0.3
points. So it was an exciting meet! Not everyone's best gymnastics, but
we were able to get a big win and accomplish our primary goal of qualifying
to our 14th NCAA Championship!!!
So that brings us back up to today. We had a great week of training last week, and we will train today one last time before getting on the plane to head to Corvallis! We had a relaxing three day weekend, so I hope to see some rested and excited gymnasts walk in here today!I like where we are at physically and mentally going into this weekend. I really hope that this will be a great finish to a very good season for us! I am excited to get out there and compete! But I will let the real athletes do it!
I can't wait to see many of you there! The rest of you tune in, as I'm
sure Anjel will give you information about where to find it online. Keep
your fingers crossed and send us good vibes!!!
Thank you for being with us all season and Go Blue!!!!
Bev
Wow! Another regular season has come and gone! I can't believe we just
said thank you and goodbye to another class of seniors! Senior night is
always so emotional. It is a bittersweet time when we acknowledge everything
that they have meant to our program and say thank
you. But it is also so sad to see them getting ready to move on to the
next chapter of their lives. I thought we sent them out with a bang! We
had our second highest team score of the season at a 196.95. Our team
vaults were awesome once again! We stuck several vaults and the others
were all close. We have been doing soooo much better on this event in
practice and it is wonderful to see it translating into the competitions!
Uneven bars has been a strength all season, and it was once again a strong event for us. From top to bottom, we have had solid performances on this event. Balance beam was solid but still has room for improvement. Of any of the events right now, this is where we can still gain the most into the post season! We have to be more aggressive on this event and eliminate little wobbles. Floor exercise was outstanding, and I like the way we are performing there! So all in all, we sent the seniors out in style from regular season competition.
Now on to another post season! So you probably know that Big Tens is just up the road in East Lansing, MI, and that we are taking a bus of fans along to cheer us on. I hope that if you have not already done so, you will send out an e-mail to let us know that you will be coming along!! Your support and cheering REALLY does help us sooooo much! The team really loves to hear you all going crazy up in the stands for us! I think this week so far has gone exceptionally well. I am seeing a lot of attention to detail, and we are sticking landings on all events.
I am so excited going into this weekend because I think we have a great
opportunity to come out with another great score that will help our RQS
going into the Regional seeding process. We never take this meet for granted!
Winning another Big Ten Championship is definitely our goal, but we know
we have to earn it. Penn State and the other Big Ten teams
will not just allow us to walk in and take it. They will be peaking and
giving us all they have got! PSU is most likely the biggest competition
once again based on the RQS scores, but Minnesota and Michigan State are
also strong teams, and Michigan State will have the home court advantage.
So I'm sure it will be an exciting night of gymnastics that you will not want to miss!! So jump on the bus and Let's Go Blue!!
Bev
Wow! That is all I can say after a really wonderful weekend for Michigan gymnastics! On many fronts it was exciting. The meet with Georgia was awesome. Both teams had really good nights, and it was a close and competitive meet all the way through! We had some awesome vaults! It feels so good to say that, after telling you several times that vault was the event we needed to improve in order to compete with teams like Georgia! We stuck about half of our vaults cold which is something we have not done up to this point. After the first rotation we were tied with Georgia. Their vaults were awesome as well, so after the second rotation even though we had a very good bars rotation, they pulled ahead by a few tenths.
We hit beam and showed that we can preform there under pressure. We had
our best beam total of the season at 49.275. Our floor was very good also.
We hit over 49 on every event and ended up with our season best team score
of 197.10! I was so proud of the team
for stepping it up and showing that they have a lot of competitive spirit!
It makes the meet so much more fun and the energy levels rise when everyone
is so into the meet. Our fans were awesome and the energy in the arena
was electric! So THANK YOU to all of you who were
at the meet and cheering so loud! We appreciate you all so much!!
Another exciting part of the weekend was that we had a great turnout for our alumni reunion! It was so fun having them all there for such an exciting meet. We had women who were on the very first team at Michigan in 1976 all the way up to our most recent grads from last season. That was awesome. What a lot of great stories they had about the "good old days". We brought them up to the new facility after the reception and believe it or not, we had one of our 1970's grads tumbling and doing back tucks on the floor! Just like nothing had changed! Wow! That is what I kept thinking afterwards!
Next stop for us is Senior Night this Friday at 7:30pm. This is always such a bittersweet time when we honor our seniors and say thanks to them for four (or five) years of hard work dedication and commitment. Historically, this has always been a great meet for us, so I hope that we will carry the energy and excitment from this weekend into next weekend and beyond into Big Ten's, Regionals, and NCAA's! I hope you will all be there to share it with us.
We are planning to take a bus to Big Ten's in East Lansing on March
25th for all of our fans. We hope to fill it up and provide you all a
relaxing, fun trip to be a part of another exciting Big Ten Championship
meet. The Michigan High School Basketball Tournament is going on at the
same time, so parking will be a nightmare. So take advantage of the bus
and come yell and cheer to help us go after our 15th Big Ten team title!!!
Go Blue!
Bev
Hello once again to all the Michigan Gymnastics family, friends, and
fans! It has been a busy couple of weekends with some long plane rides
and changing time zones. I am happy to report that we really turned things
around in Denver and have hopefully gotten ourselves back on track! I
thought that we had a very good meet all the way around. In an away duel,
we always compete bars, vault, floor, beam. We started on bars with solid
routines. We didn't stick a lot of dismounts, but we had good routines.
The judging was pretty tight for us on bars, so we only started the meet
with a 48.775 dispite some strong routines. We can't
control the scores, so we just kept fighting to make our routines better
as the meet went on.
That we did! We had one of if not our best vault performance of the season,
I thought. A 49.025. Floor and beam were strong all the way through, from
the first to the last routine! A 49.125 on both events. So we broke back
into the 196's, and we hope to build from there. Lauren Mirkovich won
bars, Katie Lieberman won vault, Nellie Kippley and Tatjana Thuener-Rego
tied to win beam, and Tachi won the All-Around as well! It was a pretty
exciting night! We got Becky Bernard back into both the bars line-up and
a beam exhibition spot. She just
needs a few chances in competiton to get herself back into meet mode after
such a long time off with her various feet problems. I am so glad to see
her back. I know she has big time potential to put up huge scores in those
two events for us.
All three of our all-arounders (Lindsey Bruck, Jenny Deiley, and Tatjana
Thuener-Rego) scored over a 39.00. They have all been so solid for us.
Lindsey looked like she had her gusto back, and Jenny has really been
pulling it out in competition for us, even though I know her body hurts
in a lot of places! Carol McNamara and Nellie Kippley have both been rocks
for us this year! They are the ones who don't ever get a lot of the attention
but are there every meet, putting up their 9.8's and scoring for the team!
Carol had the best
floor routine I've seen with her full in first pass and double tuck last
pass. I guess the altitude thing didn't bother her.
Well coming up on Saturday, we host the Univ. of Georgia, who is #1 in the country. It should be an awesome night of quality gymnastics. We hope to raise our level of competitiveness to meet the challenge! Georgia just competed at Utah on Monday night and won by .025, I believe. They will travel here on Friday and compete with us on Saturday night at 7:30pm. I hope you ALL will come and bring ALL of your friends to watch this one! Bring your loudest cheering voices and help the Maize and Blue try to upset the Bulldogs! Can't wait to see you all there!!
Go Blue!
Bev