Gymnasts look to best last week's season high
Team looks to continue its success on the balance beam.
Published March 2, 2007
As great as last week's meet was for the gymnastics team, it doesn't count — at least, not yet.
Under the Regional Qualifying Score rating system, a team's highest score is dropped. The team's 196.075 in the Callaway Bank Cat Classic was good enough to put the next highest score, 195.325 against Centenary on Feb. 16, into the system. The most recent score from the Classic will not count unless there is a higher score to drop.
That could all change on Saturday when the team travels to Pittsburgh to take on the Pittsburgh Panthers and the Central Michigan Chippewas. Because of the system's prejudice toward road scores, at least three of a team's six scores must come from away meets. That makes this weekend even more important.
"We're anxious to get back on the road. We haven't been on the road really for close to a month," coach Rob Drass said. "So for us and our rankings, and just qualification in the postseason, the away scores now are very important for us."
Despite all of this and the fact that the team did not count a fall on beam for the first time in three weeks last week, it is approaching this week like any other.
"We're just going to really focus on the things we normally focus on and expect the same kind of things that happened last weekend," Drass said.
During its beam struggles, the team devoted extra time to it but worked to maintain the same regimen for practicing the other three events. Now that the stress has been reduced, it makes practicing other events a little bit easier.
"We just don't have to focus solely on beam anymore," Drass said. "We can really just go back to our normal style of practice where we're kind of looking at everything."
Since this week's meet is a tri-meet, the order of events remains unknown to the team. It is possible that the team will have beam as the night's last event. But the possibility of added pressure isn't a concern.
"If it were to end beam, honestly, I don't think a lot of people would really think about it," senior Amanda Pezzullo said. "I hope a lot of people wouldn't think about it because it's always kind of a stereotype, like, 'Oh, ending beam, everybody could crumble and fall.' But that could happen on bars, that could happen on floor, that could happen on vault."
Senior Whitney Crater, who had been having trouble competing two days in a row after an injury late last season, managed two season highs on the second day of the Classic.
"I think she's feeling better," Drass said. "I think she's still sore on a regular basis, but I think it was a mental confidence builder for her to be able to do that."
For Crater, the key to her recovery this season has been to be just like any other member of the team.
"I told the coaches in the preseason to treat me as if I've never been injured," she said.