March 28, 2006

March Madness

The march began in So Cal with a long weekend of competitions in Fullerton and in Los Angeles. The team continued rolling the next weekend with a great competition against Alabama's Crimson Tide. SWG did not travel or compete the following weekend. Instead we got hit with a double whammie: "hard week cycle" for gym, conditioning and routine-wise, and our dead week, the week before finals! With finals approaching and Pac-10s just around the corner, emotions were flying. The last two weeks were definitely a struggle-a struggle that persisted all the way to the last event of the Pac-10 Championships. Still, everyone was able to pull through to get the work done both in and out of the gym.

The Pac-10 Championships, held by Oregon State University this past weekend, started off with a bang. Senior Natty Fo opened up the meet with a rock-solid yurchenko-full. The rest of the team followed up beautifully for an overall team vault score of 49.225. Next we swung on over to the uneven bars. I think we had a tad too much adrenaline, which threw off the rhythm a bit, but we still had a strong showing and got ready to step things up on balance beam. I would like to take this opportunity to make a huge shout out to sophomore Lauren Elmore. She is amazing! In only her second competition of the season, Elmo led the Card off with a flawless beam performance. Her strength and confidence spread to the rest of the girls and together SWG was able to get a season high 49.5. Yay! Going into our final event, floor exercise, we weren't sure about the scores, but we knew we needed to earn every tenth if we wanted to win the Championship. All the madness, the work, the hours from the previous weeks brought us closer together as a team and we knew we were ready for the challenge. We rallied all the way until the last beat of music played and tumbled our way to another season high, this time with a team score of 197.1. March madness came to an end with a hard-earned VICTORY! I'm proud to announce Stanford Women's Gymnastics as the 2006 Pac-10 Conference Champions AND Kristen Smyth as the 2006 Pac-10 Co-Coach of the Year!

I would also like to take this time to thank all of the family, friends, and fans that made the trip to Oregon to support us. We could hear you cheering and could not have done it without you guys! We hope to see you all on April 8th at our Regional Meet, which is being held in our very own Maples Pavilion. Be sure to buy tickets early to get good seats. We love you all and hope that April showers you with happiness and success!

See you in a couple of weeks!

-Tabbs :)