Focusing on beam in two weeks of prep for Flip For The Cure

By Brice Biggin

Head Coach

Wins are always nice, especially when they come against Mid-American Conference competition. And we certainly have to be happy any time we go into someone else’s gym and win. That is never easily.

But while we felt fortunate to win, we were not overly happy with some of the scores.

Our bar scoring was just a little tight. We felt like we did some nice bar routines. We were hoping for a little different scoring and just didn’t get it. That hurts our team score, and that’s not a matter of wins and losses, but how it impacts our regional ranking.

We dropped from No. 22 nationally to No. 25. Part of that, though, is our fault because we couldn’t stay on the beam. What we’ll take from this weekend at Western Michigan is that we are still not a good enough beam team. I don’t pull a lot of punches. Right now we are just not a good beam team. We had a couple of individuals do a really good job, but I always tell the team that a couple individuals is not going to win meets. A couple of individuals will not win championships. And right now, we are not good enough to win a championship the way we are competing.

We have a couple of weeks to work before our next meet, which is the Flip For The Cure on Feb. 7 at home against Northern Illinois. In those two weeks we are going to drill routine after routine on the beam in the hope of getting a little more consistency.

We need to get a few people going. Chelsea Drooger is a junior who competed all year last year and had just one fall. She has two falls in four meets this year. We talked and she understands that she needs to be a lot better because she has the talent.

We are still missing Whitnee Johnson to an injury. She was out completely this weekend. That’s a big loss on the vault and the beam, and it will probably be a couple of meets before we get her back.

Two of our girls did a very nice job on the beam, though, with Nicole Radon scoring a 9.750 to lead off. That’s what we are hoping for – at least a 9.7 to lead off, and she did one of the nicest routines we’ve seen in a meet this year. Nicolle Eastman has struggled a bit this year getting her self in gear, but she did by far her best routine in getting a 9.800.

Obviously Marie Case, we can never say enough about what she does. She got a 9.9 from one judge and a 9.8 from another. She just doesn’t let anything affect her. If someone falls in front of her, she stays 100-percent focused.

We have some girls who are close on the beam. Jordan Hardison is a freshman who did an exhibition beam routine. She stayed on and is someone we feel has potential. Amiah Mims is a junior who has had a very good year so far. She is adding a new skill and a new mount that is giving her some trouble. She needs that and until she is consistent with it, we can’t throw her in there yet. Once she gets it she will be a legitimate contributor there. 

That Feb. 7 meet is our premier meet of the year. Northern Illinois is a nice team and we need to come prepared to compete, but obviously a lot goes into that meet with the promoting the Flip For The Cure. It’s not just about the meet. It’s about the cause. 

Especially with this being a female sport, we want to do our part to get the word out there on such an important issue. The money we raise will go Stewarts Caring Place in Akron Ohio. This is a group that supports not only the individual with the disease but how the diagnosis and treatment effects the whole family. They have teen nights, spousal support groups, disease education, husband support groups, elementary age kids events and activities and financial advise groups, all free to the families that contact Stewarts Caring Place. They also provide free wigs for patients, meditation seminars, stress relief groups and all around help for the whole family that this disease effects.

If what we do raises awareness and encourages women to get screened and be proactive against this disease, some people will have a chance to save their lives. With anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer or knows someone who has been diagnosed, they understand the support system they have is very important to the outcome of treatment.

This is an event that is very near and dear to us, so we are hoping to get a great crowd with people who are willing to donate to an important cause.

No. 21 in nation after week 1, looking ahead to another big week

By Brice Biggin
Head Coach

We learned we have some pretty good potential this past weekend.

It is always tough competing that first week of the season, and that is especially true when you are on the road. When you are a couple thousand miles from home it is a little more difficult. 

But we looked very calm as a group at Southwest Missouri State. The girls looked very confident. Warmups went as well as expected, and then when we got out into the competition they didn’t seem to let anything get to them. When you hit 23 out of 24 routines your first time out, that’s pretty good.

We told the girls that it takes a team effort when you go out there and do that well. But freshman Olivia Trout as a freshman competed three events for us for the first time, and she won one event outright, tied for first on beam and then tied for third on floor. That’s an outstanding day for a freshman.

Olivia is really coming a long way with her discipline and her consistency. Those are the things we’ve talked about with her quite a bit.

Marie Case had a normal Marie Case meet with three first places. Really, we had very solid production from everyone. 

Samantha Gordon is a freshman from Florida. She only did floor, but she had a nice floor routine for us. We have a sophomore named Jaymi Baxter who came in with a knee injury after her senior year of high school. She hadn’t competed in almost two years, but she was in two events for us. It’s tough coming back from an injury like that, taking that kind of time off and jumping right in. She did a great job.

Rebecca Osmer, a transfer from Towson, did a fantastic bar routine. She tied for first with Marie Case. It was a beautiful routine.

Now we have a bit of a difficult week because we are coming off of a Sunday meet, getting home very late Sunday night, and then turning around to compete twice this week. We can’t go real hard this week because they will expend a lot of energy Friday and Sunday. We have to find that delicate touch of how much you can do as opposed to not doing too much or doing too little.

I think the girls will be excited because it is a huge week for us. On Friday we have Eastern Michigan coming in for a MAC meet along with George Washington and Rutgers, which are both good teams. Rutgers had a great meet this weekend and I think they are 16th in the country after the first weekend. We will have our hands full.

Sunday is obviously the marquee matchup in Beauty and the Beast with both us and wrestling competing against North Carolina State. It’s a fantastic opportunity for fans to come in and get a chance to see two completely different sports.

Last year was our first Beauty and the Beast event, and it was a big success. I tried to look over and watch some of the wrestling because I really like wrestling, but it is hard as coaches to be able to do that because we are constantly talking with the team or with the next person who is up. But we heard so many nice comments from people who really enjoyed the event, so we are hoping to do it every year.

We won’t juggle the lineup much between Friday and Sunday’s meets unless something happens to force it. We’ll try to stick with the same lineup. We have a little bit of depth, which is good. But every score counts for us. We have to get our best lineup in every match, especially with the competition coming in. There are some kids who are close that if someone has a mistake, that could force a change. Otherwise, wills tick with the same group.

We are getting healthier. Marie Case has been slowly coming back from an injury, and she has made great progress the last two and a half weeks. Sunday was the first time she did floor for us. She is still a little bit sore, so we have to really watch her numbers and what she does this week, but she should be good to go the whole week. 

Nicolle Eastman is starting to come back from her injury. She did a beam for us this past week and did a good job, but we really need her to come back on floor and vault. I’d say it is unlikely she’ll be able to do those events this week. She is making good strides, but we with three days of practice there just isn’t much time.

We got Whitnee Johnson back to do a vault for us, which really helped. She is one of our top vaulters. But she is still out of floor right now and it’ll be a couple of weeks yet for her to get back there. 

We are on the right track. We have a lot of work to do still, but I’m really happy that we are coming off of such a great team effort last week. Any time you can go out and hit your first meet like that, it is exciting. That score put us at 21st in the country. Hopefully we can build on that. Now we come home for two meets and that is a special thing. These student-athletes know how important it is to perform at home and we get two opportunities. Anybody interested in gymnastics and or wrestling on Sunday, it’s a great opportunity to come out to the M.A.C. Center.

Back to work and looking ahead to Southeast Missouri State

By Brice Biggin
Head Coach

We will be in Southeast Missouri State on Jan. 12 for what will be a very good competition.

They are a much improved team that that really made a push for regionals last year. Their coach has the program moving in a good direction

For us, we need this to get our feet wet. We don’t know really what to expect from this team yet this year

We have practiced very well, but we are still nursing some injuries and don’t know 100 percent yet who we are going to have. Even if they are able to compete on Sunday, they will be competing at less than 100 percent.

Like the Blue & Gold with Pittsburgh on Dec. 6, I think this is another very good opportunity for us to see some of our younger kids and to put them under some pressure where they need to understand they have to compete this year.

Injury wise, I think we will have Marie Case back on floor and vault. We didn’t have her at either spot against Pittsburgh.

I think we will also get Whitnee Johnson back on vault. She is day-by-day. One day she’ll come in and the injury won’t be good. Then the next she’ll come in and be ok. She needs to tough it out because we’ll need her over there. Vault isn’t necessarily our weak area, but losing a couple of kids hurts our depth there.

We did a little bit of a mock meet yesterday on floor and didn’t do a very good job, and that was some of our upperclassmen, which was disappointing. 

I think some of our problem is that it is hard to get in shape this quickly for the season when you have had two and a half weeks off. It’s amazing what two weeks will do to a kids body. If you are not practicing four or five days a week, your timing goes, your strength goes and your endurance goes. They had just gotten to the point where they were starting to hit pretty well, and then all of a sudden you get two and a half weeks weeks off. Then you have 12 days to get back into shape.

We started back up on Dec. 27 and they haven’t had a break yet. It has been two-a-day practices non stop since they returned. They’ve been sore and tired, but their attitude has been good. They are working hard and they understand it is a grind. It takes this type of work to come into this first competition and expect to do well.

This trip will be a good opportunity to see how tough our kids are because you have to be a better team to compete on the road. Usually we compete pretty well here in Kent, and in the last couple years we really stressed performing on the road. They did that really well at that last year, but this is a new team with new challenges and new faces. We need to see where we are.

We have to keep getting healthy and get these younger kids ready. In our sport, kids come in as freshmen and are used to competing in only three important events the whole year. But here every meet is important and its a huge culture shock to them because they aren’t used to practicing with the intensity that you have to hit and you have to hit right now. You don’t have a choice.

Olivia Trout is doing an outstanding job as a freshman. She competed in two events against Pittsburgh and did well in both floor and beam. For a freshman to come in and do well on beam is a huge bonus for us. She has added vault, so she’ll be doing three events now for us. She was not a practice person when she first got here, but we’ve been able to stress to her about how important consistency is and to her credit she has really stepped up to the challenge and made huge strides.

She is really the only freshman who is making an impact, which is disappointing. We are going to have to get a lot more from our freshmen if we are going to be at our best this year.