March 12, 2009
Columbia, Mo. - After a season of success and high expectations, the No. 13 Missouri Tigers gymnastics team will say goodbye to the Hearnes Center for 2009 in their final meet before the Big 12 Championships next weekend.
For two seniors, Alicia Hatcher (Blue Springs, Mo.) and Adrianne Perry (Columbia, Mo.), and junior Liz Straatmann (Villa Ridge, Mo.), it will be their final home meet as Missouri Tigers. The squad will take on No. 9 Oregon State at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are just $2 for everyone; doors open at 5 p.m.
Missouri will be looking to its departing gymnasts, as well as junior and Big 12 Gymnast of the Week Sarah Shire (Columbia, Mo.) for some of the biggest performances of the year in a contest against the Tigers' highest-ranked opponent this year. Missouri is 5-1 at home this year, 15-2 overall.
The Tigers have never beaten the No. 9 Beavers in three previous meetings. Their last meeting came at the 2008 Salbasgeon Suites Invitational, where the Tigers finished in third place behind a score of 195.225. Oregon State won the quad meet.
Missouri is looking to set the tone going into the Big 12 Championships, which are at 2 p.m. next Saturday from Ames, Iowa. The Tigers' rotation at the championship will start on bars and end on the vault.
Stay with mutigers.com for live stats, updates and the recap from tomorrow's meet.
Scouting the Beavers...
Oregon State is No. 9 overall and third in the Pac-10 conference with an RQS of 196.370. The Beavers average 196.070 this year. OSU is coming off their highest score of the year, a 197.500 on Senior Night in Gill Coliseum. That is the third-highest score by any team this year. The Beavers are led by senior all-arounder Jami Lanz, a second-team All-American on the balance beam and the uneven bars. Another threat is junior Mandi Rodriguez, who is first-team All-American on vault and averaging just over a 39.2 in the all-around this year. Head Coach Tanya Chaplin is in her 11th year as the helm of the squad.
Looking ahead...
Missouri will make their second trip to Ames, Iowa, next weekend for the Big 12 Championships. The meet starts at 2 p.m. on Sat., March 21. The Tigers will be looking to avenge earlier-season losses to No. 10 Oklahoma and No. 12 Nebraska while seeking their first Big 12 title. Live stats will be available on mutigers.com, while a daily highlight video can be found on Big12Sports.com. Fox Sports Midwest will show the meet on tape delay.
Rotations announced for Big 12 Championships
The Tigers will start the night on the uneven bars and end on the vault next weekend, a rotation that Missouri is excited about. The squad posted their second-highest total of the year, 196.225, at Oklahoma -- the only other time this year they've competed in this order. Nebraska will follow Olympic order and start on vault, Oklahoma will start on beam and Iowa State on floor. From there, the events proceed in Olympic order (vault, bars, beam, floor).
No fear of Friday the 13th...
If history repeats itself, the Tigers have nothing to be spooked about. This will be the second time this year Missouri will compete on Friday the 13th; the last time was a season-high and record-breaking 196.625 vs. Illinois at the Hearnes Center.
Tigers on track for best winning percentage all-time
While scores rule the roost in the sport of gymnastics, it doesn't hurt to win a few meets. The Tigers have done more than that this year -- their current winning percentage of .882 is the best in 30 years of Tiger gymnastics. The current title belongs, not surprisingly, to the 1994 squad with an .833 after a 15-3 regular season.
Sarah Shire is five-time Gymnast of the Week
The junior was named the Big 12 Gymnast of the Week on March 9 by the conference office, the fifth time this year and third time in four weeks that Shire has claimed the honor. She now leads the Big 12 for most weekly awards garnered this season.
Shire's award comes after her eighth all-around crown of the year this past weekend at the Eagle Invitational in Ypsilanti, Mich. She took top honors by a score of 39.375, as well as a share of the beam title with a 9.825 on the event.
This is the second week in a row that Shire has stood as Gymnast of the Week -- she received the title just last week after a career-high performance of 39.575 in her all-around win at the Cat Classic. She received the honor two weeks before after her performance at Beauty and the Beast, and was also Co-Big 12 Gymnast of the Week in January with Nebraska junior Kylie Stone. Shire won the award outright the week before. Senior Alicia Hatcher (Blue Springs, Mo.) was also named Big 12 Event Specialist of the Week that week.
Shire has been one of the most dominating gymnasts in the conference this year. She has now won the top title in eight of nine meets this year, and has taken 16 individual event titles.
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 smashed her career high on the vault at Oklahoma with a 9.925 -- the highest score by any gymnast on any event that night -- to take the event title. She is ranked 44th in the country on the event and third in the Big 12 with a 9.764 average. Gold has also been a steady member of the floor lineup, where she averages a 9.753. She has hit a 9.725 or better on those two evenst in every meet but two.
Mizzou finds success in multiple meets
The Tigers have now participated in 35 multiple team meets since Head Coach Rob Drass took over in 2000. In those meets, Missouri has an impressive record -- 71-32, including 16 outright wins. Those 16 wins include seven Cat Classic titles, including the 2009 title. Last season, the Tigers were 3-3 in regular season multi-team meets -- they finished second at the Cat Classic and third at the Salbasgeon Suites Invitational in Corvallis, Ore. This year, they have taken first place in quad meets at Ohio State and at Eastern Michigan.
Tigers push record books on vault
Missouri is ranked 10th nationally on the event with an RQS of 49.155, second highest in the Big 12. The Tigers have now cracked the 49.000 mark on the event six times this year, including the last five meets in a row. Mizzou's season high on the event midway through the season when the Tigers posted a 49.250 against SEMO, the fifth highest score in program history and the highest since March 2007.
Missouri breaks out on bars
The Tiger squad added the uneven bars to their list of events where they've broken the 49.000 mark in the fourth week of the season -- Missouri posted a 49.150 on the event at Ohio State, still a season high. Their previous high had been 48.725, set the week before. 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 that week.
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. 12 nationally on the floor with an RQS of 49.070. That's also good enough for second in the Big 12, just one-tenth of a point behind first place Oklahoma. Contributing to that total in a big way have been senior Adrianne Perry and junior Sarah Shire. Perry is second in the Big 12 and tenth nationally (avg. 9.864) on the event, while Shire is ranked 28th (avg. 9.870) and fifth in the Big 12.
We're halfway there...
One of Missouri's team goals was to average a 49.000 or better on all four event this year. The Tigers are halfway there -- they average a 49.033 on vault and a 49.017 on floor. The team is close on bars and beam, as well, where they average a 48.722 and 48.725, respectively.
How to break records
It's been a year of big scores for the Tigers, as ten career-best records have fallen this year. Junior Sarah Shire has set four new career highs in the all-around (39.575), and on vault (9.950), bars (9.900) and beam (9.925), and senior Alicia Hatcher set a personal best on floor (9.775) against SEMO one week after tying it. Junior Brooke Boehmer set a new personal best on the balance beam against Illinois with her 9.875, while classmate Danielle Guider's 9.850 on the floor at the Cat Classic was a new personal best. Tiger sophomores have been bringing the heat, too -- Lauren Stephenson posted a new career high on beam (9.725), while Alex Gold shattered her career high on vault (now 9.925) at Oklahoma after breaking it with a 9.900 earlier this year.