Jan. 21, 2009
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Editor's Note: Throughout the 2008-09 season, members of the Illinois State women's gymnastics team will be providing Redbird Athletics fans with an inside look into their team, as well as a glimpse into the daily life of an Illinois State student-athlete. The third blog in the series comes from gymnast Mary Hankosky.
Hey Redbird fans! This is Mary Hankosky senior co-captain of the Illinois State Gymnastics team. I just wanted to tell you all about our third meet, Flip for a Cure quadrangular meet with Michigan State, Iowa and West Virginia. The meet was hosted by Michigan State in East Lansing, Mich., Friday, Jan. 17.
The week leading up to the quad meet we focused on perfecting our skills. We spent a lot of time on toe point and hitting handstands on bars. All of the girls looked awesome during practice, which really helped our confidence. We felt prepared and everyone was excited to compete against some really great gymnastics teams.
When we arrived at Michigan State we got ready and prepared for warm-ups. Warm-ups went well and everyone was ready to compete. Our team started on the uneven bars. This event was a little rough for the first four Redbirds in the line up. However, Erica Schick and Robin Weissman finished the event with awesome routines.
After bars we moved on to the balance beam. Emily Matko gave the Birds a little pep talk before they competed on beam and had everyone laughing and relaxed. Andrea Orris started the team off with a solid routine and things just went up from there. Hannah Deutsch and Melissa Mann performed really great beam sets which made the team excited to go to floor and show off our routines.
Floor was also a great event. We only had five people to put into the line up and those five people did an awesome job. Emily Matko started the Redbirds with a fun and amazing floor routine. The last event of the night was vault. We had to make some last minute changes to the line up. Katie Witty stepped up to compete vault after having only three warm-up turns in the 3:00 minute touch before we competed. I think that the way vault went was a wonderful way to end the meet for the Redbirds.
After starting off on a not so good note the girls really pulled together as a team and finished the meet strong. I am so proud of all the girls for staying together and doing some really great gymnastics. We are excited to get back into the gym this week and where we will really focus on the little things again and also work on sticking our landings.
Thanks to all of our fans that made it from out of town to cheer on the Redbirds in Michigan. We are excited to return home this weekend and host Bowling Green. We want to see you there supporting your Redbird gymnastics team.
Go Redbirds!!!
Mary Hankosky
Senior Co-Captain
