Feb. 6, 2015
By Gabrielle Richards, GoPSUsports Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - After travel plans were upended due to continuous snowstorm over the Northeast, the Penn State women's gymnastics team finally made it to Illinois last weekend. Despite a stressful trip to Champaign, the Nittany Lions were ready to take on the fighting Illini in their Big Ten matchup.
For anyone following the meet, the team started off the day in normal fashion: breaking personal best records. However, this meet was different; Penn State was able to perform the break a 12-year-old school record on vault.
"Oni [Timothy] started on vault for us," head coach Jeff Thompson said. "She is able to stick one of the hardest vaults in NCAA competition. The five vaults following her were amazing. The girls stuck everything. This is the best vaulting performance I have seen as a coach."
The team finished with a nearly perfect vault score of 49.550.
"It was a tail of two teams that day," Thompson said. "We are still working on our lineup order and the most important position is who goes first."
Unfortunately, the adrenaline rush the team felt from their record-breaking vault performance did not transition well into the other events. Coach Thompson thinks the team was too excited, which, in a mentally challenging sport like gymnastics, can make or break you in competition.
"We gave Illinois the lead of floor," Thompson said. "Briannah [Tsang] went out of bounds on an easy pass because she just had so much adrenaline, the same happened to Lauren [Li]. Emma [Sibson] unfortunately fell. It just felt like we were off a little bit."
After beam and bars, the Nittany Lions were unable to bounce back, losing to the Illini by less than a point [196.400 to 195.600].
"We have made a few adjustments this week," Thompson said. "We told the girls all week that we just need to stay focused and take one thing at a time. We have changed up our lineups and we are moving the more consistent girls to the front."
Timothy's vault has "stuck" a first place send off in the Nittany Lion's lineup on vault. Alex Witt is going to lead off on bars. Nicole Medvitz will take over the first position on beam and Li is going to open for the team on floor.
"We made a few changes to Briannah [Tsang]'s floor routine," Thompson said. "Surprisingly, we have made it harder. She is so powerful that when we giver her an easy pass and she has a flush of adrenaline, she will over rotate and that is when things like going out of bounds happens and falling happen. So we are hoping that this new, challenging, pass will help her."
Penn State welcomes Michigan State this weekend and Coach Thompson hopes to see how the new lineups match up against another Big Ten foe.
"Michigan State is having a great year," coach Thompson said. They are ranked ahead of us on beam and floor. We have to bring our A game. We can't give them any opportunities. We beat ourselves out in Illinois. We just need to do what we do in the gym everyday."