North Carolina State University Athletics
Gymnastics Looks Forward to Hearts Invitational
2/7/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
Feb. 7, 2005
Raleigh, N.C. - The NC State gymnastics team traveled over to North Carolina this past weekend to compete in the annual Governor's Cup. The Pack struggled on beam, having a total of four falls. But NC State responded and performed well on the three remaining events (scoring season-highs on two of them) to bring home a second place finish. Assistant Coach Todd Henry tells everybody how he felt the meet went.
Henry: The Governor's Cup! My first experience with the Carolinas versus the state of Maryland. What a great concept. It was NC State, North Carolina, Maryland and Towson. Of course each team wanted to perform and hopefully win the team title, but also you do pull for "your" state to win.
As the kids on the team know, I am the kind of coach who will not color things over. I speak from the heart and wear my feeling on my sleeve. In that case....the team struggled on balance beam, AGAIN!!! We tried some different things with the line-up, which did not work. We had several falls on beam to start the meet. In college gymnastics that is not something you want to do. It is the equivalent to throwing interceptions in football. Because of our mistakes on beam North Carolina beat us by just two-tenths of a point! Maryland was third and Towson rounded out the meet. Mark, Molly, Lex and I have discussed this event at length and will now try some radically different training going forward.
On the very upside, we rallied after beam (our first event) and scored our highest point total of the year! Mark gave an inspired talk and the kids responded. The big picture is what we keep in mind. Each week we have improved our score and we will continue to focus on the last half of the season. It is very difficult to maintain perfection for 15 weeks. Remember, it is who crosses the finish line first!
This will be a big week for us. We will be back in the gym training hard for this weekend's home meet. Friday night we host the annual Hearts Invitational, and from what I have heard this is always one of the biggest home meets of the season. The whole team always looks forward to this meet because of the quality of teams that come to NC State for it. I hope everybody comes to Reynolds Friday night to watch.
