 "Photo: Jami Bonner")
Coming off an impressive intrasquad meet Friday, the SUU gymnastics team will begin its 2010 regular season today at Brigham Young University.
"We're all ready to compete (and) we're all ready for the season," junior Jenna Vogt said. "We all look really good and we're all just ready to go up there to start the season off right."
The T-Birds, who have usually had their intrasquad meets in the Jay Dee and Alice C. Harris Center, had their intrasquad meet in the Centrum Arena this season.
Senior Lindsey Schultz said she believed one major byproduct of the intrasquad meet taking place inside the Centrum Arena was that the team got experience and the feel of being in a traditional competition before the season even started.
"In the past years, we've actually done our intrasquad in our gym, so it was still like a practice feel," she said. "But, the Centrum, that's where we compete, so we really needed to be in that mindset that we were competing, even though it was against ourselves. So I think it prepared us even more for our first meet on the road, just to get in that meet state of mind and get our heads all ready."
The 2010 season will begin with a trip north to Provo to face in-state rival BYU.
Last season, the T-Birds were able to sweep the Cougars in both matches played between the two. SUU won 194.875-192.100 on Feb. 13, 2009 inside the Centrum Arena and then again 194.675-189.125 on Feb. 27, 2009 in Provo. Before those matches, the T-Birds finished ahead of BYU in a meet at the University of Utah.
However, gymnastics head coach Scott Bauman said a lot of that was because of the injuries sustained in the Cougar lineup last season. He said BYU is much healthier this season.
"BYU is a team that will be much improved over last year," he said. "All of the kids that were injured last year ... are all healthy now. They were all extremely good athletes. BYU can recruit great kids up there, and they have a very good coaching staff."
Heading into BYU, Schultz said she believed the most important objective for the team is to hit as many of routines as possible.
"A victory is always nice, but more than just winning, we just want to hit all of our routines," Schultz said. "If we hit 24-of-24 (routines) and we end up not winning, then that's still a great accomplishment."
As SUU prepares to launch its 2010 campaign, Bauman said he believed his team's leadership would make a difference as the season wares on.
"The thing our team has going for it is great leadership," he said. "We don't just have good, but we have great leadership (and) some of the best leadership we have ever had on our team before. These leaders are relaxed, and because of that, the rest of the team is relaxed."
Schultz agreed with Bauman and said another quality of the team this season has had is staying positive, even through adversity.
"I think all of the girls on this team bring different leadership qualities," she said. "We all are staying positive this year, which is awesome. Even in hard times, we still keep our chin up, we smile, we encourage our teammates."
Bauman said another positive heading into the new season has been the quality of his freshmen class, and he said they are headed into in the right direction.
"(Freshman) Alyssa (Click) on the bars looked awesome ... she's doing a great job and I'm very impressed with her," he said. "She won two intrasquad events. (Freshman) Caitlin Kennedy, our other freshman, did a wonderful job on her three events also."
However, one of the T-Birds' first challenges this season will be overcoming an injury to one if their best athletes, senior Melissa Johnson, who injured her knee on her floor routine during the intrasquad meet Friday night.
Nevertheless, Bauman said he thought Johnson would be ready to go Thursday night.
"(Johnson) is one of our best all-arounders and we need to be very careful with her knee," he said. "That happened in the intrasquad, but you'll have these little bumps like (this)."
Bauman said if she wasn't able to do all four events, other athletes would have to step up.
"It just means that everyone else has to step up," he said. "If she can go, she'll be in there. She's 100 percent going to do at least bars and vault for us."
SUU will begin its 2010 regular season today against BYU; events are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in Provo.
Be the first to comment on this article!