Wow. This has been quite a season!

Although we are sad our season came to an end a couple of weeks ago and we wish our entire team could be going to nationals, we are more than excited to have Katie and Joanna going to Georgia this weekend and representing the block M!

Our whole team has been in the gym since regionals, some working on new skills already, but more importantly supporting Katie and Joanna. They have been focusing on the small details, and going for every stuck landing and hit handstand. They are looking confident and ready to go! We will all be watching them from home and sending them all of our positive energy just as we would if we were there with them!

Thank you for all of your support this season. It means more to us than anything and we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did without all of you
believing in us! Go Blue, baby!

Annette

Big Tens was an amazing experience! Our team had so much energy, making it so much fun!  Steph started vault with a bang by sticking, which only added to the energy and excitement. I have never had so much fun competing in my life – vault was something else! The score in the first session was close, every tenth counted, but we pulled ahead by a quarter of a tenth. 

Our sights are now on Regionals. We have to have an exceptionally good meet! We are confident and are practicing hard to perfect our routines and stick our landings. We know we can make it to Nationals; we have the talent and the confidence! We are going to represent the block M with pride and integrity - I believe in our team! Thank you and we appreciate all your support, especially to whoever came to Big Tens and/or is coming to Regionals!  

GO BLUE!

Sachi

It’s that time of year again - post season!! This past weekend we traveled to Iowa City for the Big Ten Championships. The team came into the meet with confidence, ready to represent the block M with pride. We started strong on beam hitting 6 for 6 with solid routines from every performer. The vault rotation might have been the most exciting thing to experience, everyone had sticky feet and nailed their vaults. On the fourth and final event, we continued our momentum from vault and stuck almost all dismounts off the bars. The competition was strong this weekend and every tenth mattered. By the end of the first session Michigan was in the lead. We went back for the second session to support the other Big Ten teams. After all was said and done, Michigan finished fourth edging out both Illinois and Penn State.

The weekend had so much energy and we are ready to take on the Regional Championships in Auburn next weekend. The team is so pumped for the upcoming two weeks and we are working extremely hard. Thank you to all the fans that came out and supported us at Big Ten’s as well as throughout the entire season, we appreciate it so much! 

Go Blue! 

Shelby

Last Friday we competed at the Eastern Michigan Convocation Center against Georgia since Crisler Arena is under construction. While it was technically a home meet, it was fun to compete somewhere else, especially since we have been doing better at away meets this season! They were able to bring our banners and equipment, and we had a decent amount of people there. While we didn’t get the team score we were hoping for, we had a lot of fun and competed more relaxed, which really seemed to help us! This week it was great to see people step up and compete some new routines! Reema was back in the vault lineup, Annette competed her Yurchenko 1 1/2 for the first time, and I competed beam for the first time. With all of the injuries we have unfortunately experienced this season, the team has done really well in keeping the energy up and staying positive! 

This week we will go back in the gym and continue to work on the little details as post season approaches. This season has absolutely flown by and we can’t believe we only have one more meet before Big Tens! Friday is our last home meet, but this week we will be competing at Cliff Keen Arena. Thursday we will go there to get a feel for the surroundings as we prepare to take on Michigan State! I think everyone is pretty excited to compete in Cliff Keen. Because it is smaller than Crisler, it will be more crowded and it should be pretty loud in there, which always helps keep the energy up! We have a brand new leo we are excited to wear too! 

The meet will be tape delayed on the Big Ten Network and we look forward to having our own Kylee Botterman (Kolarik now) there with us to announce the meet! Hope to see all of you at Cliff Keen on Friday at 7 pm to cheer us on as we beat Michigan State! 

Go Blue!

Steph

So, we are getting ready for our last few meets before we get into the post season!

Tomorrow we are going against Georgia and the girls are extremely prepared, committed, and very excited. Even through the many injuries, and even though we don’t have the numbers like many teams do, we are still going strong, and everyone is just gearing up and staying as healthy as they can for Big Tens, which I can say is the meet we are most looking forward to and definently most determined to win. (And to show all the other Big Ten teams what Michigan has been working for all year.)

In the gym, all the girls have been looking strong. We have been taking a new approach to our assignments where we have scenarios before we go up and do our routines (just to add a little more pressure on the girls to hit their routines). Everyone did really well and we are excited to show everyone on Friday how mentally tough and focused we all really are. So come on out and watch us Wolverines take down Georgia at EMU at 7 p.m.! Hope to see you there and have a great weekend everyone!   

GO BLUE! 

Natalie

So, going into this week we are coming off a wonderful showing at Oklahoma with a 196.3, our highest yet this season! This week of practice has been really exciting having the positive momentum from last week behind us and pushing us forward to do even better. Even though we didn’t come out with a win, we definitely gave OU a run for their money. This was a quad meet; we started on bars and progressed in Olympic order instead of flip-flopping events like we do at dual meets. Having beam as our second rotation and having six for six hit routines gave us a great boost of excitement and energy going into the final two rotations. We had a really good crowd there to root for us; Sachi had a lot of her old teammates watch, and we had one of our future freshman for next year, Austin, also come to support us. Oh! Annette also competed her first all-around of the season! It’s so great that we are able to have four very strong all-arounder’s this season.

This week we have been on our Spring Break. It’s nice to have a little mental break from classes and a chance to get ahead on some school work. Things in the gym have also been going well this week. We’ve been looking great and I can’t wait to see what we’ll do this weekend at Penn State! It’ll be nice for Shelby, Annette, and I to be back in our home area. We’re so excited to get to see our families, friends, and hopefully some old teammates and coaches that we don’t usually get to see during season. 

I can’t believe that we are over half way through our season already and Big Tens is only three more weeks away! We got in some fancy new leotards today that we can’t wait to wear for post-season!! 

GO BLUE!!!

~Jo~

So we just competed in Nebraska this past weekend, and it was the most exciting meet yet! We got our high score of 195.825!! We had some great
performances by everyone on the team. It was awesome to see Reema in vault lineup for the first time, and there will be more to come from her! A season high score for Katie on beam of 9.9 was another highlight. We had another solid performance from one of our all arounders, Joanna Sampson. I am so proud of everyone on the team so far!

This week in practice we really focused on hitting our best routines and being aggressive, and just doing the routines we know how to do. At this
point in the season, we know we can do our routines so we just have to keep the momentum going and improve off each competition. Everyone is doing a great job in practice to focus on landings, finishes, and the other little things like pointed toes and straight legs. Each little focus can move scores up slightly, which will overall benefit the team!

For me personally, right now I am just focusing on being there for my teammates everyday in practice by being vocal and encouraging. I’m sending my positive energy to the girls every day in order to keep practices light and fun. I am continuing to rehab my knee every day, and it keeps getting stronger! I have surgery on the 27th to repair my ACL! From there on out I will be resting, then rehabbing to be back in action for next season! I can’t wait to strengthen my knee, and begin doing gymnastics again. This summer I will be in the gym working hard, hopefully learning some new skills, and I plan to come back better next year.

This Friday we compete against Utah at 6 p.m. in Crisler. It will be an event to see! As a team we are looking great right now, and this meet will
be a fantastic one to come out and watch. Hope to see you all there!! And as always, GO BLUE!!!!

Thanks,

Kristin Nagle

It is has been a great week for us so far.  We had a decent competition this past weekend, making yet another comeback on floor and beating West Virginia.  It was great to have Annette in the floor lineup for the first time – she did an awesome job!  This meet really boosted our confidence, especially on beam, and I think that we’re all really excited to see what the rest of the season has in store for us.  Practice has been going well this week, too.  We’ve been trying to make it a little more exciting, so Bev has been placing wagers on each beam routine that we do.  Because several of us hit routines that were 9.8 or above, Bev had to sing the victors while standing on top of the vault table and she had to do some of our conditioning with us today.  That definitely gave us all a good laugh at the end of practice.

 This week, some of our team will be participating in “Mock Rock,” the student-athlete variety show.  They’re performing with the men’s team, and hopefully this year they’ll be able to place in the top 3!  I haven’t seen the act yet, but from what I’ve heard, it is pretty funny (and hopefully the judges will agree!).

 We head to Nebraska this weekend for the Masters Classic.  It’s our first quad meet, and I think it will be a great one for us!  Look forward to seeing you there, and if not, at our next home meet!!

 As always, GO BLUE! 

Katie

Can you believe that it’s February already?! Time is flying by so quickly! I personally am impressed with the weather this year. It hasn’t been too cold and the sun has been shining! It definitely puts the team in good spirits. As you know, we just recently had a home meet against Illinois and managed to pull out the “W.” It was a bit of a battle, but a competition isn’t over until the last performer finishes! Unfortunately another teammate got injured but she is doing a great job at being positive and keeping this team together and motivated. I know many might think we have had a rocky start to this season, but the team and I believe that everything happens for a reason; and our team is strong enough to overcome any obstacles that try and stand in our way! (This is Michigan, for God’s sake!) 

We have been working really hard in the gym this week and are excited about having another home meet on Friday. Nothing is better than coming into Crisler Arena and putting on a show for all of you! Next Tuesday we have Mock Rock, and that is when all of the athletic teams put together a skit or a show and raise money for Mott’s Children’s Hospital. We have a great idea that should be really fun to perform (props to Lisa Hass for her input, ha ha) although we haven’t exactly gotten started with the skit. The men’s gymnastics team will perform with us and we will probably choreograph the skit this weekend. We procrastinated it a little bit but I hope it all works out! 

Anyway, PLEASE come out and support us on Friday at 6:00 PM! We absolutely love your support and it is what motivates us even more at competitions! 

Always, Go Blue!

Reema