Feb. 11, 2009
Columbia, Mo. - It's been a good start for the 13th-ranked Missouri Gymnastics squad -- Top 20 rankings on all four events, all-around wins in every meet so far, and team and individual scores growing higher every week.
But, now halfway through the regular season, the Tigers are gearing up for a great finish. The squad will be looking to improve its team score for the fifth week in a row and put together a complete meet this Friday against No. 17 Illinois.
And they're hoping for the biggest home crowd of the season to cheer them on in the third annual "Beauty & The Beast" meet. Fans are encouraged to wear gold to show their support for both the Tiger gymnastics and wrestling teams, who will compete side-by-side on Friday night . That meet will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Hearnes Center; doors open at 5 p.m. Wrestling will take on Central Michigan beginning at 7p.m.
Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for kids. Fans can also bring in two canned food items to gain free admission. The food will be donated to the Central Missouri Food Bank.
Head Coach Rob Drass said he and his squad are looking forward to the meet, and hopes that fans are, too.
"This meet is a lot of fun because you get to have a huge crowd which is really helpful in gymnastics. It really helps our team perform well," he said. "It's really special to get to compete with another Mizzou team and hopefully bring back two wins. For the price of one ticket, you get to see two nationally ranked teams so it should be a great event."
Drass also said the competition brought by Illinois will be stiff, but said that confidence is building in the Mizzou squad.
"Each meet it gets a little easier to repeat the success we had the meet before," he said. "We're looking to continue that and focus on the little things that went wrong and peck away at those so our scores can just get bigger.
"Illinois is always a good team. It's a rivalry," he continued. "We recruit heavily in Illinois, so it's always an important one to win. We're both top 20 programs -- it's going to come down to being the sharpest team out there Friday night."
The Tigers are coming off their biggest score of the season, 195.750, against S.E. Missouri State, and will again look to the top-flight performances of their all-arounders: junior Sarah Shire (Columbia, Mo.), senior Adrianne Perry (Columbia, Mo.) and freshman Mary Burke (Inverness, Ill.).
Shire has posted a series of dominating performances in the first half of the season, capped by this past weekend's 39.400 season-high all-around win against SEMO. She has won the all-around title in four of five meets this year, and has taken nine individual event titles. Perry took the all-around title by a score of 39.350 in the squad's only loss to Nebraska, and Burke has continued to improve every week, putting up a 39.175 to take third place last weekend.
Stay with mutigers.com for all the latest results and news before and after Friday's meet.
Scouting Illinois
The Illini are ranked fourth in the Big 10 conference and No. 17 in the nation with an average score of 194.705 this season. Illinois started the year by taking second place in a quad meet -- just behind Michigan and defeating Michigan State and Western Michigan. Their third win came against conference-leading Penn State, and they took second place behind Missouri at the quad meet at Ohio State two weeks ago. Last weekend, they captured first place at the Chicago Style Invitational.
Sophomore all-arounder Allison Buckley is making a steady return to the Illini lineup after recovering from off-season surgery. One of their brightest gymnasts has been senior Marijka Botterman, who has taken four event titles in their five meets on vault and bars. The Illini are also driven by their all-arounders: freshman Kelsey Joannides and junior Nicole Cowart. Nine-year head coach Bob Starkell leads the squad.
Mizzou leads the all-time series against Illinois 15-7. Before their meeting earlier this season, the Tigers had last seen the Illini in a 195.400-195.325 Missouri win at the Hearnes Center in March 2008.
Tigers push record books on vault
Missouri is ranked 14th nationally on the event with an average of 48.940, second highest in the Big 12. The Tigers cracked the 49.000 mark for the first time this season last week at Arizona State -- the squad posted a 49.175 facing a deficit against the home team. The score was topped just three weeks later when Mizzou posted a 49.250 against SEMO, the seventh highest score in program history and the highest since March 2007.
Missouri breaks out on bars
The Tiger squad can now add uneven bars to their list of events where they've broken the 49.000 mark -- Missouri posted a 49.150 on the event at Ohio State. Their previous high had been 48.725. Leading the pack was junior Sarah Shire, who broke her career high on the event with a 9.900. Senior Adrianne Perry (9.875) and freshman Mary Burke (9.850) also posted season highs.
Burke puts it all together
Freshman Mary Burke has improved her all-around score with every meet -- starting the season with a 38.275 against Iowa State and progressing to a 39.175 last week vs. SEMO. The freshman placed third in the all-around for the second straight week and is picking up the college competition quickly. Against SEMO, she posted season highs of 9.850 on the vault, 9.775 on beam and 9.850 on floor, while posting one of her highest scores this season on bars (9.700).
Tigers light up the floor
Choreographer Amy Smith and the Tiger squad have been working hard on floor routines, and it shows. Missouri is ranked No. 11 nationally on the floor with an average of 48.930. That's also good enough for third in the Big 12, just over six-hundreths of a point behind second-place Nebraska. Contributing to that total in a big way have been senior Adrianne Perry and junior Sarah Shire. Perry is ranked 7th (avg. 9.875) on the event, while Shire is ranked 51st (avg. 9.810). Perry is second while Shire is sixth in the Big 12.
Keeping it consistent -- while breaking records
Through the first five meets, it's already been a big year for the Tigers. Junior Sarah Shire has already set three new career highs on vault (9.950), bars (9.900) and beam (9.925), and senior Alicia Hatcher set a personal best on floor (9.775) one week after tying it. Tiger sophomores have been bringing the heat, too -- Lauren Stephenson posted a new career high on beam (9.725), and tied her personal best on vault (9.800), while Alex Gold shattered her career high on vault (now 9.900).
Meanwhile, the Mizzou squad is standing down for consistency, one of their biggest preseason goals. Hatcher has been one of the biggest contributors -- she hit a 9.750 or better on bars the first four weeks in a row and 9.850 or better on beam for the first three weeks, as well as a 9.750 on floor two weeks in a row. Gold has notched a 9.725 or better on floor for the first three weeks in a row, and Perry and Shire combined have scored a 9.7 or better in every meet on every event but five.
Texas native is Gold for Tigers
Sophomore Alex Gold (Plano, Texas) has quietly become one of the Tigers' go-to gymnasts on vault and floor. She posted scores of 9.800 and over on vault in Missouri's first two meets, while also posting two scores of 9.750 on floor to anchor the middle of the Missouri lineup. Her 9.900 on vault at Ohio State smashed her career high of 9.850, which she hit against Arizona State and twice last season.