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.