Tidal Waves
Practice Report: Sunday - March 29, 2009
The Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics Team went through a three-event intra-squad this past Sunday in preparation for their upcoming Regional competition. On April 4th, Bama will start on a bye and then rotate to the floor exercise and vault, followed by a second bye before finishing up on the uneven bars and balance beam in rotations five and six. Sophomore Kayla Hoffman moved into the seventh position on floor during this intra-squad and is expected to possibly compete this week. She also competed in position four on the uneven bars and in the seventh position on the balance beam. Junior Kassi Price did light workout reps on the uneven bars and tumbled all three floor passes. She is more realistically slated to return to the floor line-up at nationals if the team successfully advances and she has a chance of returning to the uneven bars line-up if she can regain her skills and timing on this event in the next two weeks. Here are more highlights from the intra-squad...
Floor Exercise
- Ashley O'Neal - hit all three passes with confidence.
- Caitlin Sullivan - solid on her first two passes, slight check of her foot on the landing of the third pass (front layout- front layout to a front full twist).
- Geralen Stack-Eaton - showed good energy - strong double front Arabian to open, double pike to close.
- Ricki Lebegern - great routine - hit all her elements; tumbling passes (triple twist, front-front full twist to front layout, double pike) were excellent.
- Ashley Priess - great routine as well (double tuck, 1 1/2 to front punch layout, double pike to close).
- Morgan Dennis - strong routine as usual - double layout, tuck through to double tuck - both looked fine; Coach Raschilla spotted her on the final pass on the hard floor (double tuck).
- Kayla Hoffman - 2 1/2 to punch front, double tuck, double pike - spotted on the last two - got a little frustrated with herself but pushed through.
- Erika Pearson - really good energy throughout. Double pike - Rudi - front-front-front full twist.
- Alyssa Chapman - double pike, front-front full to front layout, double tuck to close - still refining this final pass.
Tidebits: Kassi Price tumbled all of her passes on floor - 2 1/2 twist to punch tuck, double pike and closed with a 2 1/2 twist. Coaches were very pleased with her first major effort back on floor. Jocelyn Fowler also did her floor reps - double pike, double tuck - front-front-front full twist (middle pass) - improvement in executing this latter pass was noted.
Uneven Bars
- Ricki Lebegern - great routine to start off - stuck landing.
- Rachel Terry - solid routine as well - good landing.
- Geralen Stack-Eaton - great routine, one small step on the dismount.
- Kayla Hoffman - fell on her Tkatchev (had struggled in the mock 15 minute warm-up) but finished all remaining elements to perfection, including a stuck double layout dismount. Coaches used this as a reminder to the team for how every .025 or higher counts, so never give up if you experience a problem or setback in the routine. Finish strong!
- Morgan Dennis - great routine - one step back on her dismount.
- Ashley Priess - wonderful routine - tiny hop on the dismount.
- Megan Mashburn - problems on the Tkatchev (fall) and the Comenci dismount (touched down) - warm-ups had been better, so this was a bit of a surprise performance.
Tidebits: Erica Pearson was also doing reps on the uneven bars, highlighted by a straddle Jaeger release move. Geralen Stack-Eaton was later working a 1 1/2 (healy) pirouette on the high bar. Kassi Price did light pirouetting and kips.
Balance Beam
- Casey Overton - several problems with this routine - fell on her front aerial and later during her flight series (bhs to layout stepout). Coach noted that she had been experiencing off and on problems with the original shoulder that had surgery prior to her arrival at UA; but Casey is a fighter and a consistent performer on this event and they did not appear concerned that this would reoccur in competition. In fact, this was such an unusual occurence that we thought initially that the coaches had "set it up" as an adversity situation to see how the team would handle it with the remaining routines. As you can see, they handled it just fine.
- Caitlin Sullivan - great routine - no problems executing any of the elements. Stuck the four element dismount sequence (hitch kick to front aerial to stag jump to immediate gainer full twist dismount).
- Ricki Lebegern - perfect routine - perfect focus throughout.
- Geralen Stack-Eaton - slight check only on the Onodi, rest of routine was super confident.
- Morgan Dennis - awesome routine as well - slight check on the double tuck dismount.
- Ashley Priess - hit all her elements without a problem but replaced the full-twisting Korbut during this intra-squad with a switch leap to straddle-straddle combination. Not sure if this means she will take it out just for Regionals or was cued to remove it in the event of a teammate falling beforehand.
- Kayla Hoffman - solid effort - a few tiny balance checks here and there.
- Kassi Price - very nice routine as well! Double twist dismount, step on the landing. Routine was pretty smooth, big skills looked fine.
- Amanda Montgomery - great effort - no major problems or balance checks noted - one arm front aerial to side aerial combination is really cool. Running front full twist dismount was solid.
Vault
Tidebits: On vault, Megan Mashburn had a very solid workout, hitting her pike 1/2 vaults consistently to the delight of the coaches. Alyssa Chapman also looked stronger with her Tsuk 1/1, both twisting and landing this difficult vault.
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