Bowling Green State University Athletics
Coach Kerrie's Post Meet Blog
April 16, 2008 | Gymnastics
April 16, 2008
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - GALLERY
Final Blog:
What a fantastic trip we had to NCAA Regionals! It has been four years since we have had an athlete qualify to Regionals so it was just so exciting to get there with two athletes! Bre and Jacque worked hard all season and this was the icing on the cake.
We arrived safely last Thursday in Baton Rouge. Several teams had experienced delays and some basically spent the entire day just trying to get there so we were fortunate to have no issues. Friday was the practice day at LSU. After a morning shopping trip, we headed over to the competition site. The arena was awesome and I could tell that Jacque and Bre were just so excited to be there. The practice round went well and they both looked ready for competition. We visited the tiger statue for some fun pictures and then took a moment to visit the live mascot, Mike the Tiger, but he must have been hiding.
Saturday arrived and it was meet day! Warm-ups went well for Bre. Jacque needed a few vaults to get her timing right and then she was set to go. Bre was rotating with the University of Kentucky so we began on balance beam. After nailing her front tuck mount, Bre had an uncharacteristic fall on her series. She rallied to finish her leaps and jumps and had a good dismount to finish up. I know she was disappointed to have a fall but she had beam out of the way and could focus on her other events. Then, we went over to Ohio State's rotation for Jacque's vault. She did a beautiful yurchenko layout ½ with just a step on the landing. What a great way for Jax to finish out her career. Next, Bre went to floor and did a nice job- just some small steps on the last tumbling pass. I thought her score was a bit low but it was a nice job. Vault was next and Bre did an awesome vault, scoring a 9.825. Finally, bars was last. She hit her hop full but had a bit of a stumble on her landing. All-in-all it was a decent showing. I was so proud that Bre and Jacque represented BGSU gymnastics well and the direction we are steering the program.
What an amazing meet. It was exciting to see the caliber of gymnastics at NCAA Regionals. Both Stanford and LSU had amazing performances to help them move on the Nationals. Shannon and I agreed that we could get our team to this event in the very near future. I'm glad the Bre and Jacque can share their experience with the team and give them the hunger to want to compete at regionals in the future.
Our trip finished with a trip to the zoo on Sunday and a chance to enjoy the nice weather. We got to see Mike the Tiger as well on Sunday during one last visit to LSU. At the end of the day, we were ready to get home to Bowling Green. It had been an exciting experience but we were all ready to get back to our schedules! Next season, I hope to be writing about our entire teams experience at NCAA competition!
