March 9, 2010

Hey Cardinal fans,

On Friday night we posted our highest team score of the season (196.8) against the Spartans and Golden Bears at San Jose. Although we have TONS to be proud of about our performances, the team honestly left the meet feeling unsatisfied.

We've been practicing on absorbing our landings in practice, which paid off tremendously in the competition. Highlights were when Dani stuck her Yurchenko full vault, Allyse stuck her bar dismount, and CJ had a very controlled Arabian double front landing on floor.

We started off so well, with Brownie hitting a killer beam routine and stuck dismount for a 9.85. The beam teams' scores climbed from there with 9.9+ work from Allyse, Shelley, and CJ. We carried our excitement over to floor, where we lit up the place like always with our hot floor lineup. And, after doing our usual great vaults during the third rotation, we were feeling really great about our work thus far. We were on our way to posting a mid to high 197 team score.

But, SWG left the meet unsatisfied with our work because we didn't finish strong on bars, which is normally a very consistent event for us. With the exception of the two routines in the back, we struggled to do what we know how to do and had to count some 9.5-9.7s.

After the competition this weekend, we had a meeting to redefine our goals as a team, reinstate individual roles, and make sure everyone is in the boat rowing as hard as they can towards the finish, which is an NCAA National Championship in April.

This week and from here on out, we're going to channel our fired-up mentality into doing big, clean, and consistent gymnastics. As individuals, we're going to focus on things we can give to our teammates to inspire them to do their best.

It's so exciting to know that this is one of the greatest teams in the nation, without a doubt. We're going to put it all together and post the high team score that we know we are capable of. We're going to dare to be great.

Jenny Peter