January 22, 2007

I cannot even describe what the last week has been like for our team. I guess the first word that comes to mind is AMAZING! We bussed down to SoCal on Saturday, doing homework and watching movies. On Sunday, we did some shopping before going to Lauren’s family’s beach house for the remainder of the afternoon. We walked on the beach, went into the Jacuzzi, had dinner, and relaxed before returning back to our hotel. Monday was definitely the highlight of a great weekend as we hit 24 out of 24 routines and 3 out of 4 exhibition routines. Everyone on the team did what they do everyday in practice and the results finally showed what SWG is capable of.

A highlight of the evening was Nikki’s reaction to her landing on bars. The evening before while we were doing our visualizations, Swizzle had told Nikki that if she ended a certain way, he would refrain from making fun of her for a month or do the three minute, really hard, abs circuit he created for us. Nikki could not pass up the opportunity and finished just the way he dared her too. We all had the pleasure of watching our coaches suffer through the three minute abs. The good news is that they all finished, the bad news is that they might be sore for a while :)

A few days after UCLA, we had our first home meet against ASU in Burnham Pavilion. Ever since I was a freshman, I have loved competing in Burnham because of its intimate setting and the amazing fans we have. This year, we decided to start something new called the “24 club”. Since our goal is to hit 24 out of 24 routines and we want to involve our fans in the meet as much as possible, we gave out 24 “24” shirts to our closest friends who came wearing the shirts and sat in the student section. For every routine hit, one person of the 24 had to stand up. By the end of the night, not only was the 24 club standing, but the entire student section was cheering and excited as we hit 24 out of 24 routines and 4 out of 5 exhibition routines. It was an amazing night with Liz getting a perfect 10.0 on bars and our team scoring a 197+. The energy in Burnham was incredible and made our first home meet a success.

I cannot wait for the next one already. Thank you to everyone that came and supported us on Friday and we hope to see you at the next one on February 9th in Maples. Thanks for checking in and supporting SWG! GO CARD!

-Pinch-