Feb. 18, 2005

We departed from Columbia for the airport at around 9:30 a.m., hoping to have a much smoother trip than the last. Our flight and connecting flight were on time and we made it to State College (Pa.) with all of the luggage except the vault entry pad that was left in Detroit for some odd reason.

At the hotel everyone was in high spirits and excited for the big day ahead. Any teammate I spoke with was confident that this meet would be the one we used to turn things around and let our true team shine through. Everyone had put last season's disastrous finish at this same Recreation Hall behind them. Unfortunately we did not get the results we had planned on.

In warm-ups all most everyone seemed calm and collected. There didn't appear to be any more jitters than usual. We went back to the locker room to get ready for the competition, and came out eager to begin.

We started on beam, which was comfortable for us, considering the consistency of our beam team. The first routine we put up was a miss, followed by a few other unexpected mishaps. It can be difficult to keep your nerves down when the person in front of you doesn't perform as expected, but our beam team did a great job at aggressively completing the rotation.

Floor went a little rougher than usual as well and vault was a pretty good performance. On bars there were many great fights where girls refused to give up.

Although it wasn't our best competition we had some great moments. Despite our setbacks we were able to put up some great routines. We had a new competitor exhibition bars, Alicia Gilmore, which was really exciting. We also had an exciting performance out of Lisa Puccio on bars scoring a 9.700. Changing our floor lineup a little, Sarah Zigler did her first competitive floor exercise.

Vault by far was the big emotional event. With our team working through injuries and getting fully healthy, it came down to Amanda Pezzullo to add depth to our lineup. Despite having a shaking touch, she stepped it up for the team during competition scoring a 9.575.

The overall team performance was not what we wanted, but it was nice to see that we could come together and hit the rest of the competition. The trip home was a fairly quiet one filled with silent frustration from each member of the squad. Although not much was said each person knew that the results from the day before were a reflection of the team. We knew we couldn't dwell on it and we couldn't change what occurred. All we could do was push ourselves and each other harder in the gym skill by skill.

We know what has to be done. We are eager get back on track Friday showing our fans the team we are everyday in the gym.