Coaches Update with Danna Durante

Happy holidays, Husker fans!

 

In our last update, we mentioned staff and team changes that have taken place over the past few months. We have one more addition to our coaching staff in volunteer coach, Tom Koll. Tom has been a tremendous asset to us this year, and we are very excited and thankful to have him working with us.

 

We hosted our annual intrasquad meet last Friday, Dec. 8. The team started out on beam in order to get some experience in the competition order for our 2007 season opener at the Super Six Challenge in Fayetteville, Ark., on Jan. 5. The starting six were Maria Scaffidi, Michele Zabawa, Desire' Sniatynski, Kylie Stone, Tricia Woo and Emily Parsons. The five returners really showed significant improvement over last year in rhythm and difficulty.

 

We are working hard this year to improve the way we work beam – a faster pace, more unique skills and choreography, as well as an increase in difficulty as a team. Vanessa Meloche, Stephanie Carter and Sabrina Long are working hard to secure a place in the top six. It's especially exciting to see Vanessa working beam after such a long break between her elite gymnastics career and her time at Nebraska. We look forward to seeing her in the lineup.

 

Our second event was floor, and it went very well. The competition order was: Maria, Desire', Stephanie, Tricia, Kylie and Emily, with Michele, Sabrina and Brittney Williams working to move up. Each gymnast has upgraded her tumbling, and most have new choreography – either new parts or entirely new routines. Again, we are working hard to improve our distinctiveness and presentation, as well as our consistency and confidence in our landings.

 

On vault, we had six Yurchenko layout fulls, one Arabian and one full-and-a-half.  Desire' and Tricia have made vast improvements over the past few months and are looking strong. Emily's new 1 1/2 is HUGE!  We were all very impressed. Stephanie and Michele are doing a good job continuing to work on the details with their already strong vaults, and Maria has an impressive Arabian and is also training a full.

 

One of the highlights of the night was freshman Maria Scaffidi, who started all four events and did an outstanding job. Maria has a bright collegiate career ahead of her! And thanks so much to our other true freshman, Molly Ohnoutka! Molly is still recovering from a knee injury she suffered last spring. She served as our video expert on Friday, but comes in daily and works very hard to get that knee stronger and back to full workouts. 

 

Our returning athletes also did a terrific job, with most performing new skills on each event and new choreography. We still have some work to do to be ready for January, but we feel good about where we are right now. We are looking forward to an exciting year!

 

Go Huskers!