NCAA Baton Rouge Regional - April 5th & 6th

Our final two days in Baton Rouge, La. with the competition day and our journey back home.

Leading up to the Competition:

Our day started off with a team breakfast at the hotel before packing up and heading to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. We pulled out of the hotel parking lot around noon and headed for the PMAC - due to the traffic threat with LSU's multiple sporting events (a track meet, baseball game, softball game, football spring and the gymnastics regionals) going on, so we prepared for a high traffic count.

   

Saturday's open stretch/warm up started at one for all six teams as the March-In was slated for four. After a good warm up we headed for the locker room to prepare to come in and give it our all. 

Take a look at our performance:

Our rotation order was started off on the uneven bars then we headed to the balance beam before a bye round. Our last two events were in the third and fourth rotations as we headed to the floor and finished on the vault before a bye ended our day. 

The lineup for the uneven bars started off with Kelsey Lawless as she scored a 9.000. She was followed by Whitnee Johnson (9.750), Chelsea Drooger (9.350), Jaymi Baxter (9.700), Rebecca Osmer (9.800) and Marie Case (9.775). We had a team total after our first event of 48.375. 

Our lineup for the balance beam had Nicole Radon leading off, with Chelsea Drooger up next followed by Kayla Kosmerl, Jordan Hardison, Nicolle Eastman and Marie Case. Radon scored a 9.750 on the opening act before Drooger followed up with a 9.600, Kosmerl a 9.725, Hardison with a 9.125, Eastman a 9.800 with Case closing the beam with a 9.850. We scored a 48.725 on the balance beam bringing our team total after two to a 97.100. 

After a third rotation bye we were heading to the floor exercise where Nicole Radon started things off again followed by Nicolle Eastman, Samantha Gordon, Jordan Hardison, Amiah Mims anchored by Marie Case. Radon started off with a 9.800 while the scores only increased from there. Eastman followed up with a 9.825, Gordon a 9.850, Hardison a 9.825, Mims 9.875 and Case bringing it home with a 9.900 bringing the team total to a 49.275. 

Heading into the fourth and final event we had a team total of 146.375. Jaymi Baxter led off on the vault with a 9.750. Jordan Hardison went next and turned in a 9.775 as was then followed by Kelsey Lawless, 9.650, Amiah Mims, 9.650, Chelsea Drooger, 9.775, and Marie Case, 9.800. The team scored a 48.750 bringing our regional score to a final 195.125. 

We finished fourth in the regional, not advancing to the national championships in Birmingham, Ala. on April 18-20. The top two teams at each regional advanced while Marie Case advanced as a individual competitor in the All-Around. Case finished tied for fifth in the All-Around with a 39.325.

Just after the meet finished we learned that Case was the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches/Women Central Region Co-Gymnast of the Year as she tied for the award with Rheagan Courville out of LSU. She became the second Kent State Gymnast to win the award as she joined Shelly Stambaugh (1993-95). 

Dinner plans:

After the meet we headed to dinner at a local place called Walk-Ons. We had a side room that quickly filled with our team and the high numbers of family members that made the trip to show us support at the regionals. After eating we departed back for the hotel around nine. 

Our day was complete with only having another travel day ahead of us. Some of the group left in the early morning around three, another third left around six and the last group at eight. The first and third group had some shaky travel issues with the airport, the second group made it with ease back to Kent. 

Our Flights the next morning:

The first group were running late landing in Atlanta and missing their connecting flight, but eventually made it to Akron-Canton Airport with the help of the airlines finding the next flight for them to jump on. 

The final group were nervous that they weren't going to have a seat on their first flight, possibly causing them to miss their connection in Atlanta, due to the flight being over booked.  With trying to find out their fate with the seats, the plane was running behind coming from Alexandria, La. delaying the flight out of Baton Rouge by an hour.

The girls were entertaining themselves with a handstand competition in the airport. They made the first flight which was a relief and made the connection flight back to Akron-Canton to end their trip to and from the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional. 

We accomplished a few things on our trip - have fun, enjoy our time with performing the best we can and send someone to the National Championships.

Our next journey is to the NCAA National Championships on Fri., April 18- Sun., April 20 in Birmingham, Ala. with senior Marie Case to compete in the All-Around, who will be rotating with UCLA at the championships. 

For  more information and to follow Marie Case at the National Championships, go to www.kentstatesports.com or follow us on twitter @KentStGym

Go Flashes!

By Brad Bee
Assistant Director of Athletic Communication

NCAA Baton Rouge Regional - April 3rd & 4th

Our journey to the NCAA Central Regional in Baton Rouge Louisiana on April 5th with our experience leading up to it. Input from Head Coach Brice Biggin, Assistant Coach Craig Ballard and Senior Women's Administrator Janet Kittell. 

Coach Biggin: 

"The two weeks leading up to tomorrow have been really good and we feel really good about it. The practices and attitudes from the girls towards the regional show they were determined over the two weeks and I think we got a lot accomplished in those weeks.

The consistency of the team over the season shows we are ready and I think if we go out there and try to compete harder, it wouldn’t benefit the team from what we have worked on leading up to the meet. We just need to go out there and do what we do in practice every day.

The nice thing about this team, they have mixed together really well and worked together, and that has pulled them through some really tough meets this season. As a staff we think they will go out there and have a great meet tomorrow."

Coach Ballard:

"We have had some exciting travel plans since leaving Kent on Thursday morning …  with three flights out of two different airports and through six cities to get the team to Baton Rouge, it was successful and everyone got here with no issues and that is great.

On Thursday afternoon we traveled down to New Orleans to site see and got to Tour the French Quarter …  Led by Janet Kittell, Senior Women’s Administrator, who showed us where to go and what we should experience.

Then we walked over to Bourbon Street in downtown New Orleans, where we got to experience a variety of different cultures and to see the life of Bourbon Street during the day and saw the corner where they have a live camera set up - EarthCam.

The girls were entertained with the different musicians and magicians on the streets while going in and out of all the shops including a majority of the VooDoo shops. Some stopped and posed for pictures with different places and random people on the street. 

Fridays practice day was great. LSU is a good host and their Pete Maravich Assembly Center (PMAC) is a great facility. The girls were relaxed and had a great practice leading into our objective tomorrow.

They got use to the environment with the layout of the arena, where everything was and it got them focused for tomorrow. Keeping that consistency that we've had throughout the season with being ready to go and well prepared heading into the practice day and carry that over to the meet. 

After practice, we went over to go see Mike the Tiger – LSU’s live mascot that has his own habitat on campus.

You can watch Mike live with their TigerCam.

We then headed to dinner at Boutins which was highly recommended to us from locals and planned out by Assistant Coach Sharon Sabin.

We had a great experience with some local Cajun Louisiana fare. A great atmosphere, food was amazing with a Local band followed by a great team meeting before bed.

Barb Knapic, KSU gymnastics alumna and NADC Board member, met up with us at Practice day at the PMAC and enjoyed the rest of the day with us.

At the team meeting, we got a chance to regain our purpose and focus on tomorrow. We got to figure out Logistics for Saturday so we can be prepared and united heading into the meet."

Senior Women's Administrator, Janet Kittell: 

"The trip has been a very nice blend of fun and education and culture and serious competition -- from Beignets at Café Du Monde to Alligator and Crawfish at Boutin’s on Thursday night. 

The team has had great exposure to a culture and an experience that will last a lifetime.

They have had fun these past two days and are ready to compete.

We look forward to the Regional with LSU, Stanford, Auburn, Arizona and Iowa State."

Check back for more information on how our Trip to Baton Rouge, La. has been and the results of the NCAA Regional.

Results from the NCAA Regional - Click Here 

For more information on the gymanstics team, go to www.kentstatesports.com

Go Flashes!