Feb. 6, 2007
Get behind the scenes of Illinois Gymnastics with Illini Ink - the weekly women's gymnastics journal. This week, sophomore Lindsey Smith talks about the team's wins against Iowa and Ohio State.
Hey Illini Fans,
Another week has come and gone. Now that we are into the competition season the weeks go by in a blink. Most weekdays mainly consist of practice and school. Practices have been going really well for everyone. All the girls are in great spirits and are just having fun being in the gym and training hard. We are very excited for the upcoming competition season and know that this season is going to rock!
Everyone is really confident after coming off back to back Big Ten victories against Iowa and Ohio State. It was an awesome feeling to win our first two home meets of the season. It also felt great to be at home with all the fans surrounding us at Huff Hall in their orange and blue. The competition against Iowa was a dual competition with the men's team, which is always a lot of fun for us. We had a great turn out with close to record attendance. The fans were so loud that it really helped keep the atmosphere and energy at an all time high.
Our competition against Ohio State was just us and them, but the whole guys team was there to cheer us on since they didn't compete this weekend. With a score of 194.725 against Iowa and a 194.95 against Ohio State we all were very happy. However, there is still much room for improvement and we are positive we will show that as the season moves on and we continue to become stronger. After both competitions, Coach Bob took the team out to dinner. Many of the girls had family and friends that came to the competition, so we had a ton of Illini fans at dinner to help us celebrate our victories.
Not only is gymnastics going well, but it seems as if school is going really well for everyone too. We have been in school for three full weeks now and everyone's homework load seems to be picking up a bit. In another few weeks though it will be midterm time and all of us will be pretty swamped with work. Before we know it, finals will be coming around and another school year will be over. But, for now we will live in the moment and enjoy the 2007 season because we know it will be awesome and I know all the girls can't wait!
GO ILLINI!
Lindsey
