University of Pittsburgh Athletics
~Dre's Diary~
3/20/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
~Dre's Diary~
3/20/2005
Andrea Arlotta |
Hey again! I hope everyone had a great break. This week was a busy one for Pitt Gymnastics, but we came out alive and with a lot of great results. I?m sure everyone was running to their computers to check the results of our meets, in between lounging on the beaches and getting that great tan during Spring Break, right? I probably don?t even need to give you any of the results, yeah? Yeah right! I?m a little smarter than that, and I can?t say I blame you either! But have no fear, because Dre?s Diary is here; so now you can enjoy that tan and these updates. Enjoy!
While you were out, our team had three more meets, one that I already briefed you on in the most recent entree of my diaries. If you didn?t see it yet you should check it out; it has a special section in it about our seniors! Our second meet was on Tuesday at West Virginia. If any of ya?ll remember our first meet up against WVU, you would agree that it wasn?t quite the pretty picture we were hoping to paint for ourselves. Tuesday was a different story though. Walking into the arena at WVU, our team knew that we needed another high regional qualifying score so that we could move past Rutgers. We also knew that we wanted to give West Virginia a run for their money, since they got a false impression of us the first time around. We succeeded in both these aspects. Although we did not win, we put some pressure on WVU by beating them on bars, and maintaining a close score with them going into the last event. We also managed to break our season record by a significant amount. Our standout of the meet was freshman Samantha Debone, who led the team in just her second collegiate meet as an all-arounder! Awesome Job Sam! With performances like she had, it is easy to see the bright future that?s in store for our team.
We got back into the gym on Thursday and Friday, with goals to correct any mistakes that were made in the meet, while also continuing to maintain our endurance and timing of our skills. After practice on Friday, we celebrated Robyn?s 20th birthday at Hemmingway?s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROB! As usual, we all had a lot of fun just getting together and being silly. We probably did Napoleon Dynamite impersonations about a million times, and if you haven?t seen that movie, you can just listen to Brittany Baldwin, she has it mastered and it?s hilarious! We also had some laughs with Sammi?s ?Soup or Salad? incident. Props to Sam for the healthy selection of the ?Super Salad?, but the server asked if she wanted a ?soup or salad,? Haha. It was pretty funny to all of us at the time! Ok, so now that you have witnessed the goofier side of our team, let's get back to some serious talk.
We left for Towson early Saturday in hopes to pick up right where we left off at West Virginia. Unfortunately this was not the case. As a team, we struggled on beam a significant amount. For those of you that know gymnastics well, this event can make or break a team, a meet, or a gymnast. Today, beam was the ?breaker? for us. The problem wasn?t that we had to count a lot of falls; it was that for some reason we were holding back. It?s hard to say if it was just because of the lack of confidence since we had only a few practices this week, or something else, but we all realize that regardless of any excuses, we can do these skills in our sleep and it is unacceptable to look ?scared? of beam. My parents have always told me throughout my career to have ?no fear of failure?. I have learned that this is so important, because as soon as you worry about doing something wrong, you lose the focus on what you should be doing right. ?Go Big or Go Home? is the popular phrase, and it?s so true! If you don?t go big, you might as well go home, because someone else is going to be going all out and they?re going to beat you. We learned a tough lesson at this meet because we got beat by Rutgers, Towson, and Maryland. Debbie told us after the meet that we need to get into the gym and train beam with no fear. The other events are looking really good and just need maintaining while picking up little tenths here and there. The good news is that we still scored high enough to knock off one of our bad Regional Qualifying Scores! So look out, because your Panthers are going to Regionals!
Check back next week for results from our meet at sunny University of Florida! LETS GO PITT!
**Dre**
