April 8, 2009
Hey Tiger Fans!
Last weekend we traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for the NE Regional competition. The teams competing against us included the University of Alabama, OU, University of New Hampshire, University of Maryland, and Central Michigan. The teams were seeded based on the teams' RQS (regional qualifying score) and we were the 3rd seed heading into regionals. Only the top two teams at regionals advance to Championships.
We started off the meet on floor, one of our stronger events. Everyone was confident and performed great routines! Shi and A topped off the event and each scored 9.85's! Next we headed to vault. Though it was probably one of our best vault rotations of the year, we didn't get the scores we wanted. Everyone's vaults were huge, and we had a few stuck landings! Even though we were disappointed, we went into our bye very pleased with our performance. After the bye, we headed to bars. Our bar rotation was phenomenal, and we all had a lot of fun. We scored our highest bar score of the season with a 49.350! Becky started us off strong with a 9.75. Allie went next and posted a 9.8, and A and Shi both scored a 9.875. Finally, Hatcher and Mary both posted 9.9's! Feeling confident, the team headed to our last event, beam. It can be nerve wracking to go last on beam but the team did a great job, scoring a 49.000. D and Brooke both scored 9.8's, A scored a 9.85, and Shi finished the meet off with a 9.9!
Overall, we are very proud with our performance, and our final score was a 196.000. OU posted a 196.60, and Alabama posted a 197.00 to edge us out of Championships. It's hard to believe the season is over, and even though we did not qualify, we feel we had a great season! We should finish the year ranked 13th, up from 20th last year, so that is a great start; all we can do is build from there. On a positive note, Shi and A both qualified to Championships individually. I hope you can join us in Lincoln, Nebraska on April 16th to watch and support them! Hopefully next year, we will all be there!
Go Tigers!
Alex