March 12, 2007

We hit the ground running again as we stepped back out onto the competition floor on Friday night. It was great to be home again, in our own arena and performing for our own fans. To try to encourage more students to come out and watch, we made it freshman dorm competition night; giving free pizzas to the freshman dorm with the highest attendance. It was fun to see the turnout grow as the night went on, and to hear our friends cheering for us in the background.

After a week off of competition, and with rested bodies, we were ready to once again show off all of the hard work that we have been putting in since day one. The meet started off well on vault. We had five solid hits that led to a 49+ score. We have been working really hard on saving tenths on our landings, which showed as we had two sticks on the night. The team continued on to bars, which is usually SWG's staple event, but the swinging was not so smooth Friday night. There were a couple of mistakes, and we did not get to count five great scores like we usually do. However, we were still able to pull off a 49+ on the event. After a tough rotation and after our recent performances, beam could have been a disaster. But the team has been working so hard on the event, especially on mental toughness. With tons of confidence, the team went up and did what they were supposed to do. It was 10 times better than the performance in Nebraska, but there is still room for improvement, and we will definitely be striving for perfection in the upcoming weeks. Knowing that we had a solid beam rotation behind us, we headed to floor. It was great because the fans were excited and they really enjoyed each and every performance. As usual, the floor team was able to light up the building, and SWG ended on a great note.

We are off once again next weekend, and then we have our last home meet against UCLA on March 25. Between now and then I have no doubt that the team is going to be putting in more the 100% every day in the gym, even with upcoming papers and finals. I know that I can speak for the team when I say that there is nothing that we want more than to be standing atop the podium at Nationals at the end of the year, and we are going to do everything in our power to get there.

Thanks for being so supportive.
Carter