Level 5 Port Huron State Qualifier March 3rd

During this time in the season, emotions run high, and goal are set higher. We have a very determined group of level five athletes. They started the season out with a first place team finish and there have been many individual first place finishes. Because of the nature of the sport, people judging people, scores do not always make the most sense. Because these determines girls have set such high goals they sometimes forget that they need to go to a meet and have fun and put forth their best performance and not worry so much about scores and places. I myself am guilty of this as well. The girls want it so bad that I want it bad for them. We had three competitions in a row and the girls were getting tired. We started this meet on beam and the scores were tight. Several performances deserved slightly higher scores. The morale of the team was low. So when we got to floor, instead of reminding them of those last couple details they needed to pay attention to, I gave them a little pep talk. I reminded them that we don't do this to win. Winning is great and we do win because we work hard and train proper fundamentals, but somewhere along the way because we were winning we lost track of the sole purpose of our training. I reminded them that becuase they were winning they expected to keep winning and because they were winning it was natural for the parents and myself to just assume they would keep winning because we looked so good out there. I told them to forget all that and focus on the performance , not the score or places. I told them to smile through the whole routine and have FUN! Well they sure did have fun. I wish I had a camera to take pictures of the pretty smiles during their floor routines. They were able to let loose and allow themselves to get back on track. It was a great meet.

Congratulations to Melissa McWatters who qualified for state meet, Melissa also posted her personal best on Floor with an 8.65. Highlights included Mackenzie Maas posting her first ever 9 on the Vault, Melissa McWatters sticking her cartwheel in her beam routine and Annie and Krista both posting huge 9.5's on their bar routines.

Congrats to our top 10 finishers:
Krista Walberer 1st Place 37.425
Mackenzie Maas 8th Place 35.95

The team brought home the 2nd Place trophy with a score of 109.60!