March 12, 2007

Hi Everybody!!!

I hope everyone is doing well and having a great week. It was a little cold here in the beginning of the week, and we actually had some snow on Wednesday. But it's finally starting to get warmer, and Saturday was gorgeous, making it a great day for our final regular season home meet of the year and a great day to honor our graduating seniors!

We have a lot of special traditions that we carry out on Senior night, and this year was no exception. Our three seniors, Rachel Colon, Angela Ferg, and Marisa St. Louis were honored in the beginning of the meet and their parents were asked to come down from the stands. Couches were set up on the competition floor to allow their parents to have front row seats throughout the meet. The couches and parents rotated from event to event along with the gymnasts, so the parents could see every minute of their daughters' final home meet! After the meet, the seniors were presented with gifts from the coaches as well as scrapbooks filled with pictures made especially for them by the rest of the team. A video featuring each senior in turn was also projected onto the wall for everyone to watch, and showed clips of each girl from their time here at Maryland as well as home video footage from their younger days. It was a great tribute to all the seniors, and while the night was very exciting it was also a little sad to think that the careers of our three amazing seniors are almost over.

The meet itself went very well also, and we competed with a fire and passion that not only made the night even more memorable for the seniors but was a reflection of how much heart and determination our team has this year. We started off the night on vault. Senior Rachel Colon competed on the event for the first time this season and really stepped up to nail her vault. Our high score on the event was by senior Angela Ferg, who also tied for first in the meet.

Next came bars. Senior Marisa St. Louis really pulled through for the second week in a row to nail her bars routine and bring in a solid score. Our bars line-up really fought through their routines tonight, and you could tell that people were really concentrating on hitting handstands and sticking dismounts. After bars we had picked up a lot of momentum and were able to focus that energy into a great beam rotation. Some of the highlights from beam were Michele Brenner's very solid routine which earned her a 9.825, Rachel Colon's recently added backhandspring layout layout series which she nailed on her way to a 9.8 routine, and Brandi George's double back dismount which was the finishing touch on the whole rotation and on a great 9.825 routine.

Our final event was floor, which we approached with enthusiasm and attitude. The crowd really got into the routines tonight too, clapping in time to the music, and really helping to bring up the overall energy level in the gym. Lindsey Bonomo stepped into the line-up this week and hit a great routine for 9.7. We went six for six on floor and left the meet not only with a win but also with some great memories for our seniors about their final home competition.

We are now gearing up for two very important away meets, one at Towson and one at Michigan. Then we will return home for the EAGL Championships at the Comcast Center. Keep supporting Maryland Gymnastics! Take care and we hope to see you soon!!!!

Gretchen