Gymnastics recovers after poor early scores
Adrianne Perry recovered from mistakes to do well on the bars.
Published March 6, 2007
When the gymnastics team went to Pittsburgh to compete against the Panthers and the Central Michigan Chippewas, it was out to prove whether two events from the week before were flukes. Sophomore Adrianne Perry, the team's all-around star, had fallen on bars in the Callaway Bank Cat Classic. But the team also did not have to count a fall on beam in the meet.
On Saturday, nobody fell on beam and Perry did not fall on bars. She scored a 9.875, good enough to tie for the event title.
"I think last week's meet was just kind of a fluke thing," Perry said.
Walk-on senior Ali Gilmore tied Perry for the bars title. Gilmore is known among the team members as a hard worker in the gym, and the whole team shared the joy of her high score.
"I'm pretty sure all of us jumped about three feet off the ground," senior Amanda Pezzullo said.
Gilmore said she was happy to help her team recover after poor scores in the floor and vault events.
"It was a great feeling," Gilmore said. "It was just nice coming off of two events where we should have scored higher."
The team's scores on floor and vault, usually its two best events, were its lowest scores at 48.6 and 48.75, respectively. Team members said the judges might have been a little bit more difficult than usual, but some said it is just part of the gymnastics scoring.
Sophomore Alicia Hatcher said the lower scores motivated the team for bars and beam.
"It made us focus more on what we really needed to do," Hatcher said.
The third event of the night was bars, and the added focus helped as the team scored 49.250, the best score of the season for any rotation. Along with Gilmore and Perry, Hatcher also scored a 9.875. Junior Julie Abaray scored a 9.825 and freshman Becky Scholle logged a 9.8.
The beam was the final event of the night for the Tigers, and they didn't show any signs of added pressure.
Last week, five of six competitors did not fall, which was good enough for the falling score not to count.
But this week, all six competitors did not fall. Coach Rob Drass said the low scores on floor and vault led to more aggression.
"When the kids are aggressive on beam, we tend to hit," Drass said.
The meet allowed the team to drop its lowest score of the season from the regional qualifying score. In the RQS system, a team's six highest scores are factored into its final tally. At least three of the scores must be on the road. As the team's fourth road meet, the score of 195.75 at Pittsburgh removes the team's 192.625 in the Cancun Classic Jan. 5 from the system.
"It's never something you ever want to count," Drass said. "Your first meet of the year, you hope that that's not one of your three best away meets."
There seems to be a consensus that the team is getting better at crunch time.
"I think that we are peaking at the right time this year," Gilmore said. "We continue to get better and better, so the morale is very high."