Looking back at the Blue/Gold vs. Pittsburgh and then to what lies ahead

By Craig Ballard

Assistant coach

Looking back at Friday night's Blue-Gold Exhibition vs. Pittsburgh, we had a rough start on vault for what we had and who was in the lineup. But then to come back from that and do as well as we did in the other three events was outstanding.

We saw some bright spots from our newcomers that we were looking for. Skyelee Lamano, a freshman from Utah, put that bar routine together. We tweaked some things a week before the meet on Friday, and she stepped up and did a very nice job.

Rebecca Osmer, being a transfer, came in and hit a bar routine that will be big for us. Olivia Trout did exactly what we asked of her. We are excited about what she can do. And then Jaymi Baxter came in and made every routine. That was nice to see new people stepping in.

Now as we see Marie Case and Whitnee Johnson coming back at 100 percent, we should be okay. After this break, we could be very close to 100 percent as a team. Whitnee’s injury could take a little bit longer to be back doing the all-around, but if we can get her back on vault I will feel very confident about our vault team.

Friday night was as bad as we vaulted since I’ve been here. I think some of it was a little bit due to the crash early with Jordan Hardison, and some of it was the turnover in the lineup. That’s the most turnover we’ve had in the vault, so we have some new people learning new vaults and freshmen trying to step in. I think we also got pretty excited. We came right out of the gate and you saw a few people go very hard, then try to calm themselves down and end up calming themselves down a little too much. Finding that equilibrium on the event is something we have to work on, but we’ll get it fixed by the time we go to Southeast Missouri in January.

With the crash, I think Jordan got just a little excited. She really wanted to do a good job and she made a little mistake on her vault. But she is going to be fine. Whenever she is 100 percent, she will be back in the lineup. We are expecting big things from her.

It is finals week now. We’ll open the gym up in the afternoons for whoever wants to show up. We kind of use it as a little study break because our student-athletes are pretty good academically. This gives them a chance to get away from studying for a little bit. They can come in and stretch and do some basic stuff. We are back full swing with practice on Dec. 27, and then ready to go Southeast Missouri on Jan. 12.