Feb. 9, 2006
Hey everyone!
After the long week of practice we had before competing at Nebraska last weekend, we were all a little tired, but we were also excited to get back into the gym and improve on the little things!! As a team we all agreed that we had the skills, but just needed to work on polishing them to contend with other top teams in the country. Everything seemed to be going as planned until Wednesday, when I managed to jam my fingers pretty badly doing a release move in bars. At first, the trainer thought my finger was broken, however the x-rays showed that it was just a bad sprain. I was very disappointed that I couldn't help defend the Hearnes Arena against Iowa State on Friday, especially since my dad flew all the way from Virginia to come see me :o( (eventually my parents will get to see me compete lol)
Watching from the sidelines was hard to do, but I cheered on my teammates as we brought in yet another strong team score. We started on vault where it wasn't our strongest showing, but yet again we proved consistent. During the bars we came back from a fall from our lead off person. We followed with five amazing routines and three stuck dismount in a row. Our beam team just keeps getting better and better! They showed determination and focus throughout the line up, which payed off with another great beam score. Closing on floor is always fun to do at a home meet and we danced and tumbled our way to a 7 for 7 lineup.
Our Adopt-a-Gymnast sponsors were out in full fledge and made signs for their adopted gymnasts! Along with our group of regular fans, the "Gymnastics Fantastics", our new gymnastics student fan club, seems to be growing! Even though our score was not enough to fend off Iowa States' great performance, we made improvements that we had been working on and saw what we still needed to conquer in the gym for next week at Illinois. Well, thats if for now! Come back next week to see a glimpse into the life of another tiger gymnast.
Go Tigers!