April 4, 2007

Hey everyone!

Wow! It's amazing that another spring and academic quarter have arrived! Sadly, spring break is over, but it's great to enjoy the refreshing, new spring along with a fresh start to classes that start up again this week…and I'm very excited that it's my turn to update you guys on how awesome SWG is doing right now.

As you probably know, last weekend was Pac-10's, and we had a strong performance for a second place finish. UCLA had a great meet and beat us out by only a couple tenths of a point. There were some areas in our performances where we opened the door for deductions, and understandably, the team score was affected. We had high hopes of a first place finish at this meet, especially after being undefeated in the Pac-10 for regular season competition so you can imagine how fired up we were after coming in second. We are a hungry team who has been proving our potential all year long, and looking back on the weekend only adds more fuel to our blazing fire.

As we further reflected on our performances as a team, there were many things we have to be proud of. First, the depth of our team is one of our most invaluable assets. Kristen listed maintaining depth as one of our major goals at the start of the year, and it has proven its importance. The fact that we have so many people contributing is awesome! On the gymnastics side, everyone who is healthy is ready to compete and step in on at least an event or two, if not more. The girls who are unfortunately unable to finish out the season—Allyse and Heather—have given us relentless love and support, without which our task would be infinitely more difficult. It's due to our depth that we currently have our 4th place national ranking. Also, although we had a few mistakes, we showed our toughness by covering for each other to minimize the gaps in scores and breaks in performances. This really shows our toughness and growth as a team because recovering quickly is something that we have struggled with in the past. At the end of the day we were able to walk away with a respectable score of 196.95. You can check out the video of the meet in the "Podcasts" section of our multi-media website here. The user name is SWG2007, and the password is 010107SWG.

I have just a few more exciting things to tell you before I close out! I just want to mention how exciting it was to stand up and cheer for Carly and Kristen as they accepted their awards for Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and Coach of the Year, respectively! Also, we hope you're all looking forward to the next thrilling step of post-season... REGIONALS! We just found out that we'll be back down in Tucson, Arizona where the top two teams move on to Nationals! Right now we're practicing with more determination than we ever have, and our coaches are working just as hard to prepare us for what lies ahead. Carly shared a great quote with us the other day, and I really think it sums up our goal: "Train like an underdog, compete like a champion."

That's it for now—thanks for bearing with me on this entry, there were so many important things I felt I should share with all of you! Thanks also for checking in with us, and come back soon for another update. Happy spring, everyone!

SWG Love,

Liz =)