Hello again! It's spring break week for the Univ. of Michigan, and we are looking to use this week to try to have a little fun in the gym and lift our spirits a little! We just got back from Utah, one of the lowest scoring meets we have had in a number of years. A meet that is extremely uncharacteristic for any Michigan team. Not because we aren't a good team and not because we have given up. It happened because I have GREAT young women who care so much that they are trying to hard! They know the hand that we have been dealt this year with all of the injuries etc ... and they have stepped up and been hanging in there doing a great job. What they have to realize is that they will be just fine if they relax and do what they are capable of doing and stop putting so much pressure on themselves to be perfect every single time out!
I've said it before but we have a very young team on the floor this year. We are learning as we go and sometimes the best lessons are the hardest learned! So this week we have to start remembering that we should be having fun! We should be walking out onto the competiton floor with nothing to lose and everything to gain! All we can do is what we are capable of doing, and what we are capable of doing is good enough to get us where we want to go!
So we are looking forward to this week in the gym, and we are looking
forward to going back to Michigan State on Saturday evening to compete
with the Spartans. We will see how well our lessons are being learned.
Stay tuned and GO BLUE!!!
Bev
Good morning! I know some of you are wondering why we have dropped completely out of the rankings this week. Well, it is because they changed over to doing the rankings by RQS (regional qualifying score) and we do not have enough away meets at this time to calculate an RQS. So until we do, we are unranked. After our meet in Utah, we should be back in there.
So last Friday we dropped a meet to conference rival PSU. It is a meet that we should have won, but we gave it to them on beam. They hit and we did not. That is how it goes sometimes. I'm disappointed, but not with my athletes! We are a very young team right now and we need to build confidence in ourselves and in our ability to hit in any situation! Four out of our six beam routines are by freshmen and sophmores, and even though Clare is a senior, this is her first time competing in the line up!
This is a season of tremendous growth for our team! We have lost a lot of our big scores, and we are stepping up and these athletes are learning, how do they say, "trial by fire"! We will have our bumps in the road as we continue to grow, but I believe we will grow. I believe that we will be a better, more consistent team at the end of March and April than we are today! We may not be climbing in the rankings right now, but we are getting better and learning valuable things with each meet. This is NOT a team that will give up on themselves, so my experience tells me that we still have lots to look forward to!!!
Stay tuned for more great highlights from the Maize and Blue!! We go
on the road to meet Utah on Friday night. This is always a great meet,
and it will be interesting to see how our team will rise to the challenge.
Our biggest goal needs to be not beating ourselves. If we can go in there
and hit four solid events, then it will be a victory for us!
Bev
Happy Monday!! I hope that everyone is looking forward to a Happy Valentine's Day on Wednesday. My husband took me to dinner and a movie last night because weekdays are pretty crazy around our house. We saw Dreamgirls! I recommend it! Good movie :-)
Anyway, we were pleased with the win over a very good Nebraska team on Friday night. Neither team had its best showing. Beam was a tough event for both teams. We started out the meet well on vault, despite having to make a last minute change in the line up. Maureen Moody took a short landing in 30 sec touch, and we didn't think it would be prudent for her to go. So once again, Clare Flannery stepped in to save the day. Clare has really shown that, as a senior, she knows what needs to be done and she steps in and does it. I am so happy for her, because she has trained and hung in there for three years without much opportunity to compete and now she is finally getting her chances and she is coming through for us!
We did well on bars for the most part. There were no falls but two routines that didn't go as planned. We still managed to score just under a 49 so not so bad. Beam was an intresting event. We only had one fall, however we had a short tuck full and a triple series that became only a twp skill series etc... The judges were strictly taking everything! So we only ended up with a mid 48 on the event. I am happy to say that after some disappointment on beam, the team bounced back and had their best all together floor preformance of the season! They came back after being disappointed last weekend and really stuck landings and showed what they are capable of! Now all we have to do is put all four events together in the same meet. Sounds easy, right?
Well, I see the confidence beginning to come in this young team, so I am hopeful that we will peak when we need to and that we will have learned a lot along the way. We have some big meets coming up, and we will need to rise to the level of competition. This weekend is our Maize Out meet. So PLEASE everyone buy your 2007 Women's gymnastics t-shirt and wear it to the meet on Friday. All of the proceeds from the sale of these shirts this year will go to Mott's Children's Hospital. So get your shirt and wear it proudly!! They are only $10 and can be purchased or picked up from the UM Sports Marketing office (734-647-2528) located over at the U of M golf course or at the meet when you arrive!
So "Go Blue! Wear Maize!" Come out and cheer us on as we compete
against our conference rival Penn State this Friday night at Crisler arena
at 7:30pm!!!
Bev
Well, it is February already, and we are about 1/3 of our way into the
season. It is hard to believe how fast it goes. We traveled just up the
road this past weekend to Michigan State Univ. for our annual Michigan
Classic meet. This is our meet that includes all 5 schools in the state
of Michigan. EMU, CMU, WMU, MSU and U of M. We got off to a great start
on vaulting. We continued to hit our first 3 events. We were on a roll!
Kelsey Knutson made her debut for the season by performing a 9.875 beam
routine! We hope to be able to add
her to the bar line up by next weekend, but we will see what this week
brings.
When we went to floor, I'm not sure what happened. We may have relaxed
too much. Huneth started us off with a great routine, but we had one problem
after another throughout the rest of the line up. No falls, just stumbles
and other tumbling miscues. It was very disappointing to give up a great
opportunity for a good away score like that. But I know we
have learned something from it as a team. When you are on a roll, it is
great. But you still can't take anything for granted! We are a young team
and sometimes these are the situations you learn the most from. I feel
like we will be a better team as we progress through the rest of the season
because of what happened to us.
We are still hoping to be able to get Carol back into our floor line
up and possibly Maureen Moody as we move forward, so we hope to get stronger
even with the loss of Lindsey Bruck, Jordan Sexton, and Sarah Curtis.
My congratulations to Michigan State! They had a great meet all the way
through! I have not seen them look this good in a long time. Big Ten's
should be very interesting this year!! It will be worth a road trip to
Penn State for anyone who can get away! We would love to have you there
to cheer us on!
Bev
Hello Michigan fans and friends! WOW! WOW! WOW! Well again I have both good and bad news to talk about after the weekend. Let me just get the bad news out of the way and tell you that we sustained another injury on Friday night in warm ups. Our freshman All-Arounder Sarah Curtis ruptured her achilies. She did it in exactly the same manner as Lindsey Bruck, punching for a double pike on floor. The only difference was that Sarah did it during warm up before the meet ever began. Floor was our last warm up event, so there was a lot of last minute scurrying to figure out what line up changes needed to be made etc...
I was so incredibly proud of our team!! We have had to replace 4 gymnasts out of our starting 6 on 3 events and 3 gymnasts out of 6 on the other events since the start of the season, and we still had our best meet to date. We hit 24 for 24 of our routines! These young women are stepping up and pulling together. It was such a pleasure to see them keep the fire and the energy alive throughout the meet despite the injuries we have had!
I'll just go through the line ups and share some of the outstanding things that I saw. On vault, Huneth Lor has now hit her new vault all 3 times that she has competed it. Carol McNamara improved her vault tremendously since her first showing last week. Nellie is getting more comfortable and hit a good vault which is also new for her this year. Maureen Moody competed a layout full for the first time this season and came up big. Tatjana Thuener-Rego also competed a new vault (a half off front pike) and hit it big. Katie Lieberman rounded out the event with a solid vault. 49.075 is our best vault total so far this season so it was a great start to the meet! We also hit 6 for 6 on bars. Carol McNamara stepped in for Sarah Curtis and hit a nice set. Huneth Lor was new to the line up last week and in her second showing hit a very nice routine. Maureen Moody was also in her second showing this week and hit a great set. So at the half way point we were rolling. 49.125 on bars put us at 98.20 going into beam.
Beam is one of the events that we have been hardest hit with the injuries. But boy have these young ladies handled the pressure well! Nellie Kippley and Tatjana Thuener-Rego are the only familiar faces in our line up from last year. With the loss of Kelsey Knutson before the season started, Huneth Lor has been in for all 3 meets this year and hit all 3. Becky Bernard saw limited action last year because of a fractured foot and she has been a rock! Our newest additions have been Clare Flannery and this week Jaclyn Kramer, both walk on's Clare a senior and Jaclyn a freshman. I can't tell you how exciting it is to see these women getting to see action and stepping up to meet the challenge! We hit 6 for 6 and went 48.95 which is also our highest of the season so far. We finished on floor with what I thought was our best effort of the season so far! Huneth Lor has made an impact in the All-Around so far this year and she can still get better! Nellie Kippley, Becky Bernard, and Tatjana Thuener-Rego - all 3 hit spectacular routines! And once again, our freshman Jaclyn Kramer stepped in for Sarah Curtis and hit a solid routine.
Looking forward, I am hopeful that we will see Kelsey Knutson making a return to line ups on beam and bars soon - if not this weekend, maybe the next? We'll possibly see her on floor somewhere down the road. We are also hopeful that Carol McNamara will be able to return to the floor line up. She was our Big Ten floor exercise champion last year, so she can make an impact. We are also looking to Maureen Moody to step up her game on beam and floor as we progress through the season. She is so clean and beautiful and has great potential in these two events. She was out of competition all of her senior season with a back injury. She is doing well with it so far this year and making up ground each week in her preparation.
So I still feel like there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel
for us this season! We just have to keep our eye on the light and stay
focused on the goal of getting there. "Obstacles are what you see
when you take your eye off the goal" So far we have done a good job
at not being distracted! These young women are staying tough and they
deserve good things to happen!!
Go Blue!
Bev
Hello Michigan fans! I'm sorry that I didn't get this in on Monday. Thanks to all who came out to see our first home meet in the nasty ice and snow!
Overall, I was very pleased with how we did in the competition. We definitely had some holes to fill with the loss of Lindsey Bruck and Jordan Sexton. We also still have Kelsey Knutson out of the line up, and Carol McNamara not ready to go at 100%. The good news is that we had some people really step up for us. Maureen Moody jumped into the bar lineup, Tatjana Theuner-Rego was back in on beam and floor. Clare Flannery stepped up big for us on beam after a fall earlier in the rotation, and last but not least Jaclyn Kramer stood in on floor. Every one of these ladies hit routines! We still have lots of room to improve but when we needed them to hit they came up big!
We really need to improve on consistency in our vaulting! We did well on vault at West Virginia, but we were very flat in this meet. First home meet, first event nerves? Trying to hard? We are not sure why we performed the way we did. But we know that we are better than we showed, and we hope that this Friday we will perform much better to start off the meet. We will have to be at our best on Friday, as Denver is coming into Crisler after scoring big at home in their last meet. So they will be confident and ready. We will most likely have the same or a very similar line up to what we had last week. But we can do better everywhere, so it will be a good meet!
A few people that I think are really giving us a spark are sophomores Huneth Lor and Becky Bernard! Becky won all three of the events that she competed in - bars, beam, and floor! Huneth won vault!! How is that for being Sophomores! Nellie Kippley has also really been doing well for us! She had a bad vault last Friday, but she came back strong on the other three events. That is the sign of a tough competitor. She shook off a pretty bad vault and got her head where it needed to be for the remainder of the meet, instead of letting it shake her confidence. Sarah Curtis is going to keep improving all season! She is capable of much more than we have seen so far, but she is adjusting to the whole college thing, and I think we will see marked improvement from her in each meet.
Well don't miss the meet on Friday! It will be a great match up! Denver
is coached by one of my former assistant coaches, Melissa (Kutcher) Rinehart.
So, come on out and bring 10 of your friends!! Crisler Arena 7:30pm Fri.
Jan 26th! Go Blue!
Bev
Well we're off! 2007 is underway! I write to you all this morning with such a mix bag of thoughts. First let me say, I was so pleased with my team in our opening meet at WVU! We went into the meet concentrating on taking care of ourselves and performing as we have been in practice. We have a young team, and we are really looking forward to making this season fun and achieving at a high level while enjoying the process!
There were 3 teams in the meet, so we rotated in Olympic order beginning with bars. We hit 7 for 7 on bars (because we had an exhibition on each event). With the exception of a few short handstands and steps on dismounts, we did great! We then rotated to beam and had a pretty good showing in that event as well. We had one fall out of our six routines, so it didn't count. We had our first meet nerves of course that come with a bobble here and there but again overall I was very pleased.
At the midway point, we talked about turning up the energy and going all out on the last two events which were floor and vault. These are the events where you can really just have fun and go big! We warmed up great and we were on a roll. Jordan Sexton (one of our freshman) started us off and her routine looked great, until the last pass where she took a short landing on a pass that she has never taken a short landing on before. She finished but limped off with some help. The team regrouped and the next four routines were very good! Becky Bernard came out after Jordan and hit a beautiful routine. Then Nellie, Katie, and Sarah Curtis, another freshman.
Our senior, Lindsey Bruck, was up last and unfortunately ruptured her achilles tendon punching for a double pike in her second pass. We were all devastated! Lindsey has worked so hard and is in the best shape of her career. When things like this happen, it just seems so unfair!! But in the face of adversity, I was SO PROUD of this team!! Huneth Lor stepped out on the floor and performed the best routine of her college career in an exhibition role and that helped our team realize that there was still gymnastics to be performed in this meet!
We advanced to our last rotation which was vault and we were now having to replace two of our planned competitors in the event. So stepping up to the plate were freshman Maureen Moody and once again sophomore Huneth Lor. Mo started us off with a clean yurchenko layout. We then took a fall and so it meant that the next four up had to hit and hit they did! Nellie Kippley competed a new vault for the very first time and did it very well scoring a 9.80. Then Sarah and Katie both hit nice vaults and all we had was one to go. Huneth has been working hard on her new vault, a yurchenko layout full. She has had good days and bad, but she warmed up pretty good so we went with it, and she really stepped up and nailed it like a pro!! She went 9.8 and secured the win over WVU by .05.
So as I stated in the beginning, I have such a mixed bag of thoughts. We have been dealt with a major blow in losing Lindsey for the year and Jordan for an undetermined amount of time. But the way this team responded, I am still very confident in our prognosis for the season!! We have some people who need to step up, and I am confident that they will. It is very hard to lose anyone to injury, but losing a senior leader like Lindsey is a hard pill to swallow. She has already told the team however that she is going to be in the gym at practice everyday kicking their behinds and pushing them to do what she will be unable to do herself this season. So I think we will be just fine! Stay tuned because I think good things are ahead! Keep your fingers crossed and hang on because we are off and there is no obstacle that these ladies believe they can't overcome!!!
Go Blue!!
Bev