We just started official practices this week and it is going well.  I am very pleased with all the positive attitudes and consistent efforts.  As a coaching staff we are taking some time to clean up some basics and get our team in the best possible shape before we kick it to the next level of training.  Conditioning has been challenging and fun.  We started Zumba lessons this week and will continue for another month (I will post a video clip on our youtube site next week).  The team is also finishing up getting floor routines choreographed, definitely some unique and exciting personalities exhibited in their dance. 

 Our captains have been doing a great job of setting goals and keeping our team focused on weekly goals.  Even though it is early in preseason, I suspect you will certainly see many new routines from our freshmen and last year’s team.  Not too much more to report, although we do have a team retreat & team building event planned for October. 

Go Blue!

Asst. Coach Shannon

Cannot believe it almost November already!  Let me bring you up to speed on what has been going on at Shepherd Gymnasium and our quest for a NCAA Title this season.

We spent much of September refining and selecting skills that will most likely be in routines this year.  Additionally, the team has really been working hard on their conditioning program.  We have attempted to give it some variety this year.  That variety has included Insanity (cardio workout program), morning swims at the natatorium, some lifting with strength coach Lew and of course some in gym circuits with me.  They look great and it will certainly show this season. 

I could tell you about all the great things the athletes can do, but first I have to touch on what great leadership and commitment our staff has seen from the entire team.  A lot of the leadership is due to a great group of seniors that do it the right way day in and day out.  We have been very impressed with the competitive and positive environment that lives within our gym, truly inspiring for me as a coach.   

Alright here is the skinny on who should really impress you this year:

• Vault:    2010 All-Americans Kylee Botterman & Brittnee Martinez look great.  2010 Big 10 Champion Natalie Beilstein returns a huge yurchenko 1 ½ with much improved form.  Sarah Curtis, Katie Zurales and Kari Pearce will provide extra depth with some nice layout fulls.  Freshmen Steph Colbert, Joanna Sampson & Reema Zakharia will definitely see some time in the vault line up. (I know the yurchenko seems to be the vault of choice, but Reema does a really nice front handspring front pike ½.)                                                              
• Bars:      Kylee Botterman and Sarah Curtis will once again anchor our bar line up with some fantastic routines.  Watch out for Jordan Sexton this season, she is swinging some huge tkatchevs and might even throw in a jaeger as well.  Brittnee, after working hard in the off season, has upped the ante with a new double layout and training a Maloney.  Don’t be surprised to see Kari Pearce make an appearance, as she has been looking solid.  Expect to see contributions from freshmen Shelby Gies (beautiful lines and pirouette work) and Joanna Sampson.  (P.S.  There have been sightings of Trish Wilson swinging bars.)
• Beam:   Our seniors are certainly going to provide us with some toughness and consistency here.  Jordan, Kylee & Sarah will absolutely provide veteran leadership and experience on this event.  Expect to see Sophomores Brittnee & Katie back on the plank this year.  Freshmen Shelby and Joanna should vie for spots in line up.  (Keep an eye out for Freshmen Tori Kane; she is an absolutely beautiful beam worker.)
• Floor:    Loaded with some big tumbling passes; pike and tuck full-ins, double layouts, double fronts and some nice combination passes.  Most of the team recently had routines choreographed and they are very entertaining.  2009 and 2010 All Americans, respectively, Kylee and Natalie will anchor this line up.  Kylee is working on upgrading the middle pass to a whip ½ + rudi.  Natalie will be showing off a huge double layout.  Jordan has upgraded her first pass to a back layout 2 ½ + front pike.  Brittnee has a nice pike full in planned for this season.  Kari has been very consistent this preseason.  Sarah returns a routine packed with difficulty.   The freshmen have shown a lot of promise here.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them contribute. 

As you can see, lots of depth and new names can be expected this season.  We are so pleased to have Jordan and Sarah back for one more year.  It is going to be an exciting year with a great home competition schedule.  Looking forward to seeing and hearing you all there. 

Go Blue!

Asst. Coach Shannon

Individually, we have had some very positive strides.  Our all-around competitors have been so solid.  Kylee and Sarah are currently ranked #6 and #14, respectively, in the country.  Our beam team has really done a fantastic job of becoming one of our strengths.  Kari Pearce and Katie Zurales have done a great job, especially at the last couple of meets,  getting our vault off to a strong start.  Additionally, our freshmen have really been a boost this year, not that we are surprised!  One last kudos is to our senior’s (Mo, Kelsey, Jackie and Sarah), who have provided leadership in and out of the gym.  I am certain they will lead us deep into the post-season. 

Obviously our team intends on improving as the season progresses and we are on our way.  Our team has consistently reminded itself that our main goal “is to do our best gymnastics when it is most important”.  Individual by individual and event by event we are achieving that goal.  The quality of our gymnastics and skill level exceeds and/or matches any team in the country at this point.  Now is the time to put it all together as we prepare to peak for post season.  Come cheer us on this weekend as we take on Georgia and celebrate the careers of our seniors as they take the floor at Crisler one final time. 

 Go Blue and see you in Gainesville!

Shannon

With the season at the half way point, it is very evident to us that this team is exceptionally talented!  The quality of what we see each day in practice is impressive, and with the exception of a few of our Balance Beam performances in meets, I think it’s becoming obvious to those who have seen us recently that we are going to move up and challenge many of the top teams we will be facing in the coming weeks.

To update you, two weekends ago we competed at West Virginia and had an outstanding meet!  We scored 196.4 and continued to improve on the small details on Vault, Uneven Bars, and Floor Exercise and we performed well on Beam for the second meet in a row!  After the meet the weather became our biggest challenge as the east coast region was blasted with a large snowstorm.  We weren’t able to get to our planned restaurant due to the road conditions that night, so we slowly made our way back to the hotel and had dinner there.  Our flight home on Saturday was cancelled as well as many of the airports in the region closed, and we settled in for an extra day in Morgantown.  We occupied our time studying, watching a movie or two, and playing Euchre tournaments in the lobby.

Last weekend we hosted Minnesota and again put up some good performances on each of the events!  Unfortunately we counted a fall on Beam and finished with a team score of 195.05.  It was still our high home score for the year (well, at least up to this coming weekend)!  Individually, 4 time Big Ten Freshman of the Week Natalie Beilstein won Vault with a season tying high of 9.90, Sarah Curtis took the Bar title with a 9.875 as well as the All-Around with a 39.2, Kelsey Knutson was great on the Beam and took top honors with a 9.875, and Kylee Botterman did another amazing routine and finished on top with a 9.875. 

This weekend we host the University of Utah Friday night at 7:30 pm and we appear ready to break out a really strong meet!  Practice has been good this week and the girls are anxious for the meet to arrive.  It is our alumni meet and a number of our past Student-Athletes will be in attendance as well as hopefully all of you! 

Our competition schedule is exceptionally strong throughout the second half of the season with each of the teams we compete against having qualified to the NCAA Championships last April. During the next two weekends we will travel take on two of the other highly ranked Big Ten powers in Illinois and Penn State.  They both have had impressive showings this year as well, and of course it will put our Big Ten Conference 31 meet win streak on the line.  These friendly rivalries are great for our sport and are very motivating for our team! 

It’s time for us to step up and show what we are capable of doing!  And I believe we are ready to do so.  Come follow us, and enjoy the show!!

Go Blue!

Scott

The start of the season has been a whirlwind but we just got back from Ames, Iowa where we had a very successful meet.  It was the first meet this season that we really put it all together and hit 4 events pretty solid.  We started out against Iowa and Bowling Green and had a pretty decent meet but counted a fall on beam and had some other little silly mistakes so we felt like we had room to improve.  The next two meets against MSU and then Nebraska we took a step backward and counted 2 falls on beam each week.  That being said I felt as though we had a lot of improvements in those meets as well.
This team has shown that it can adapt and adjust to away meet situations pretty well with different equipment etc…
We were hanging right in there with Nebraska at Nebraska until the last event and then had our misses which allowed them to take the lead.  I believe that if we had hit beam it would have been anyone’s meet.
At Iowa State this weekend with BYU we started on Bars and finished on Vault.  We got off to a good start on Bars but still felt we could have been a little more solid on handstands etc…  Beam went GREAT!!!  Yea!  We hit 6 solid routines and we went over 49 for the first time this season.  We are really a very strong beam team we just had to pull it all together which we finally did.  Kelsey and Kylee have been rocks so far, and Jordan and Sarah are doing great also.  We put in Katie Zurales and Natalie Beilstein for the first time this weekend, and they did great!  Natalie had been exhibitioning for us and had been sticking routines.  She really showed that I made a good decision by putting her in the line-up.  Katie is just now getting back into the swing of things from having mono, so I’m glad to see her back in action and doing so well!  After an exciting beam rotation, we went to floor and there we had a strong showing.  We pulled Brittnee out of the line-up because she had a pretty sore ankle and we didn’t want to risk not being able to use her on vaulting.  I think it turned out to be a good decision because we finished well on vault to come away with our first 196 of the season.
We still have lots of room to improve also which is nice at this time of the season to feel like we can get so much better.  We haven’t done as well as we would like sticking dismounts so that will be a focal point for us going forward.  That is just one area we feel like we can pick up several tenths.   Practices are going really well and the team has a great attitude.  They are really believing in the Mission Possible motto that we have for this year.  If we believe we can achieve!!!  I believe in that completely!  That’s all for now.  Talk to you soon!!

Go Blue,
Bev

Motivated and focused are the two words I think most describe the team thus far.  I have been really impressed with the increasing level of consistency in the training as we have progressed towards competition season.  We have veteran leaders in the gym, like Sarah and Kylee that bring their “A  game” every day.  They really set the tone for the practice and an example their teammates strive towards.  I think it was evident how ready they are for our run to the Super Six at the Blue & Maize Intersquad.  Other upperclassmen have additionally put forth strong efforts.  Jordan has made a strong effort to upgrade floor passes and she will be a solid bar routine this season.  Kelsey will be in a position to strengthen the bar line and with her clean lines should bring in some great scores.  Mo has picked up where she left off on bars at the end of last season and is also making a push to make vault and floor line-ups.   If anyone watched the intersquad last weekend it was impossible to miss the immediate impact Natalie will have on floor and vault.  Brittnee will be a solid all-arounder with the ability to score well on all events this season. 

But, honestly the difference in a good season and a great one will be determined by the athletes that you did not see at the Blue & Maize Intersquad.   Athlete’s like Kari Pearce and Katie Zurales will be pivotal in our team’s success.  These ladies have the ability to make us better on every event in addition to providing depth to our line-ups. 

Overall the team is in great shape physically and mentally.  We are doing a lot of visualization and have revamped the conditioning program, which we feel is paying off.  This team is focused on doing their best routines when it counts.  We are finishing finals this week and early reports indicate that they have done a fantastic job in the classroom as well.  

Happy Holidays and see you in Gainesville!

Shannon Welker

Asst. Women’s Gymnastics Coach

Hello to all of our Michigan gymnastics fans and friends,

It is finally here!  Our brand new UMGYM.com website!!  I would like to give a huge thank you to our booster club president Amy Hietala and Anjel Vahratian!  They were the ones who got this done and spent many hours working with Amy’s brother who built the new site for us!!  It is fantastic!!  I hope you all like it and find it easier to navigate.

Wow!  I can’t believe yet another season is upon us!  We have had a super fall and training is going extremely well!  We have added 3 new awesome freshmen this year.  Natalie Beilstein, Brittnee Martinez, and Katie Zurales.  Natalie is from my old home town of Butler, PA.  She has certainly been a wonderful surprise this fall.  Her vaulting and tumbling is amazing and her bars and beam has improved a tremendous amount since she has been on campus.  I know you will all be amazed at the skill level she has and how impressive she is.  Brittnee came to us from Colorado Springs and was a national uneven bars champion and finished 4th in the All‑Around in 2009.  She should make a significant contribution to our program this season.  Last but not least Katie Zurales is from Illinois and sat out her senior year due to a hip problem.  She has been doing well and was almost ready to go in three events when she came down with mono.  So right now I’m afraid she is sitting out and trying to get well.  When she is healthy and ready to go she will be a super addition to our line‑ups and give us a big boost! She is a great athlete in the All‑Around and we hope she has a speedy recovery!!

The remainder of the team is looking awesome!!  Sarah and Kylee will be that one two punch in the All‑Around again and they will have strong line‑ups the rest of the way through.  Kelsey should be doing beam and hopefully bars this season.  Jackie will be in our floor and beam line ups out of the gate with shots at both bars and vault down the road.  Jordan Sexton is looking awesome on floor and beam and her bars is just about ready to go and looks awesome!  Kari Pearce sprained an ankle and is just now coming back to the point where she can train again on vault and tumbling which are her strengths.  We hope to have her back in line ups sometime in January.  Trish Wilson has been looking awesome on vault, bars, and beam.  She will be a key for us in those events this year!  Taylor Zondervan is getting close to being ready on floor exercise again this year.  She stepped in last year on floor with a clutch performance and lead us to a victory over Penn State in the last routine of the meet!  Every athlete plays a roll on this team and every person working together is what makes this team great!!  It has been a real pleasure working with these athletes this fall and I am really optimistic about what we can do this year!

Unlike last year when we had to start slow and build all season because of injuries etc… This year we hope to come out of the gate and show what we are made of.  These ladies are determined and they have worked as hard or harder than any team I have ever had in 21 years!  They are a great bunch of young women and with a little luck staying clear of illness and injury, I look forward to great things for this group this season!

I hope to see everyone at our intrasquad Sat Dec 12th at 7pm.  It is going to be a blast!  We have John Bacon, Jamie Morris, Sam Webb, and Ira Winthrop as our “celebrity” judges.  They are going to need some help from the audience to pick the best performances of the evening so please come out to Crisler Arena and help cheer us on and meet the 2010 women’s gymnastics team!!

Go Blue!!

Bev

Lloyd Carr is a man that I have incredible respect for! He always represented to me the ideal in terms of perspective, character, and integrity. I asked him to come up to practice and speak to the team before we went to the Big Ten Championship and he said he would be honored to. He talked to them about the block “M” pride etc… But I think the most important thing he said and the thing that resonated with all of us was his definition of confidence! He said that “confidence is knowing the outcome before you begin”. We used that the entire weekend of Big Ten’s. I would ask them to tell me the definition of confidence and they would repeat those words each time! We had talked a lot about expecting success, and being confident etc… But those words sunk in for all of us and helped us to go into the Big Ten Championship meet and compete knowing we would win. Not cocky just confident, in ourselves, our teammates, and our plan! It was such an exciting meet from start to finish! I believe there was only one fall that had to be counted in the whole meet by any team. Everyone did very well. My hats off to Illinois and Penn State who both pushed us every step of the way! They are great teams with great athletes and had some spectacular performances! The Big Ten is a force to be reckoned with and I am so excited to see what happens this weekend at the different regional sites! It would be fantastic to have 2 or 3 Big Ten teams at the NCAA’s this year in Lincoln.

So about regionals… We are off to Arkansas tomorrow (Thursday afternoon) and we will go up against Stanford, Arkansas, Arizona, Arizona State, and Southern Utah. We must finish as one of the top 2 teams to advance to the NCAA Championship in Lincoln, NE on April 16th-18th. I don’t know how to predict who got a “good” regional placement or who didn’t. The bottom line is you have to hit to have a chance to move on! I think we will be going into this meet with confidence and expecting to advance! If all goes well and we can use the same line up that we had at Big Ten’s, we should be able to challenge any team there. We lucked out and were able to get a direct flight into Fayetteville so that was a plus! I know Arkansas will host a first class championship and we are looking forward to getting there and getting it started!!

Today is our last practice before we go and I have a little something else up my sleeve that I think will send us off with fire in our eyes! Regardless of the outcome, I am so proud of this team and what they have accomplished this season!! They are already champions in my book!!

Go Blue!!
Bev