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Hello Husker Fans,
I want start off with a word about Vanessa Meloche, who, unfortunately, injured her knee at Michigan on Feb. 9. The entire team is disappointed by the injury and the fact that it will keep Vanessa from finishing this season. Vanessa is an incredible person, and she means a lot to this team, whether she is competing or not. She has not missed a day of practice and has jumped in to help wherever we need it. We really appreciate her dedication and commitment to Nebraska gymnastics.
Next, let's talk about our home competition against Oklahoma on Feb. 2. We started off very strong on vault and bars. We were excited to have a strong start because we had been struggling on our first event in previous meets.
Beam and floor were disappointing, to say the last. We had a few good performances on those events, but as a team, we could have done much better. On the up side, it was GREAT to be home. We had an outstanding crowd of over 4,000 fans. Thanks to all the elementary-school children and families who came to see our team in action!
On to Michigan the following week, we had great bars, floor and vault. Beam, however, was quite a struggle again. We had some parents travel to the meet, and it was great to have them there...but we needed to figure out how to stay on the beam!
We spent the next several days between Michigan and NC State working on our mental focus for beam. The team was incredible when they were not under pressure, but seemed to be struggling in competition. As a staff, we were all very pleased with the workouts during that week and felt very confident going into NC State.
The work paid off, as we had a great time in North Carolina! The travel was easy, the meet was run well and we enjoyed seeing many friends and even a few former Nebraska athletes. As far as the competition, we were a bit rough on bars, but very strong and consistent on beam, floor and vault. The team is really beginning to enjoy itself, and the gymnasts are starting to see the result of our hard work during the preseason.
We are looking forward to the next three weeks at home. The Masters Classic will be a great competition with Stanford, LSU and NC State, who are all ranked in the Top 25 nationally. The team is excited about its progress and looking forward to showing our fans an action-packed meet. We hope to see the Husker faithful in their red on Sunday at 2 p.m. GO BIG RED!