Medalist Club: Practice Notes:

Team Meeting Post-Bars

The Alabama Gymnastics Team was hard at work again this past Sunday with another intrasquad on uneven bars and vault. The team also practiced full reps on the balance beam and continued to work through their floor choreography. Junior Terin Humphrey has made great strides in her recovery from elbow surgery (removal of bone chips in each) that occurred approximately three weeks ago and was working vault, bars and balance beam, as well as a full dance through on the floor. Sophomore Courtney Priess competed her full routine on bars and practiced several big skills on the balance beam, while junior Kaitlin White blocked out her new floor routine with the help of Dana Dobransky-Duckworth.

Bama started off on the uneven bars as a team for this intrasquad and everyone hit their routines in the first six positions, with only the seventh gymnast sitting down the dismount. In the order they competed, highlights are as follows:

Cassie Martin

Cassie Martin : She was first up and hit her complete routine without a break. Her signature toe-on toe-off to Tkatchev to pak Salto combination was well-executed, and the pace of her routine was steady throughout, including the final 1/2 turn to front giant to another 1/2 turn to a perfectly landed double tuck. The coaches were very pleased with her performance on this date.
Ricki Lebegern : Lots of pinpoint handstands and excellent toe-point, along with very nice pirouetting on top of the bar, a straddle Jaeger release and a solid tuck full in dismount, strong landing.
Morgan Dennis : She really was striving to hit all of her handstands and just missed one near the end of the routine. Amazing, effortless pike Jaeger release with incredible amplitude, followed by a bail to handstand transition to the low bar and a toe-off straddle release to the high bar, ending with a super double front dismount. Hopefully, the Hindorff release will be incorporated back into her routine by mid-season.
Jacqueline Shealy : Very nice toe-point, extension on her full turns and beautiful inverted giant work; huge Tkatchev while maintaining excellent form throughout. She left out the toe-off straddle release to the high bar in the intrasquad after earlier mishap during a practice rep; ended with a giant uprise to 1/2 turn to front giant to 1 1/2 twisting flyaway dismount.
Kassi Price: Super difficulty throughout the routine, starting with a toe-on toe-off to full turn on the high bar to Hindorff release, another full turn before a bail transition to the low bar, followed by a toe-off straddle release from low to high bar and a double layout dismount (resting from sore back, hence no full twist out of this).
Terin Humphrey: Excellent effort with handstands on top of the bar; new routine included a Hop full to Geinger release, full turn on the high bar to bail transition to the low bar and a double layout dismount, jammed landing a bit. Looks very close to 100%.
Courtney Priess: Other than rotating a little slow, this routine was just about perfect until the dismount was landed short. First glide uprise to handstand on the high bar just went past vertical as she was striving to hit this move right on top, but she controlled it well and continued with the routine. Full turn to Tkatchev was rock solid; new giant to 1/2 turn to bail to handstand on the low bar looked strong; glide uprise to handstand to immediate toe-on toe-off to giant, giant to Arabian double front dismount. Subsequent reps with her dismount alternated from stuck landings chest high to deep landings, step forward or to the side. Bama needs this routine for 2007 so it was good to see Court competing with reportedly no pain on this date. Her upbeat attitude continued to show later during beam reps and circuit training. She's one gymnast we're all pulling for in hopes that her sophomore season will be more productive and relatively pain-free.

Kaitlin White

Kaitlin White was kept out of the bars intrasquad on this date to allow her extended time to work on her new floor choreography with Dana Duckworth while Brittany Magee anchored a balance beam set nearby that included Erin Rightley, Amanda Montgomery, Ashley O'Neal , and Ashley Ford under the watchful eyes of Coach Patterson. Both White and Magee later completed several reps on the uneven bars and Magee was looking strong with her Tkatchev release and pak Salto transition. White continued to work on her new dismount, an Arabian double front. Montgomery, O'Neal and Overton also worked bars later in practice. Overton is rotating the bars more confidently and was working on her Tkatchev release. O'Neal and Montgomery were working on perfecting handstands and release moves.

During the vault intrasquad, the coaches decided to put up the following gymnasts in this order:

Casey Overton: competed the Yurchenko 1/1 with a little split in the legs on entry but she stuck the landing. She has solid technique but needs to gain more repulsion, starting with a stronger run to the vault table. Casey later worked several Y-1.5 vaults into the soft foam pit under David Patterson's tutelage. Her rehabbing is coming along nicely and we definitely could see her on two events at the beginning of the season.
Kaitlin White: stuck the Yurchenko 1/1 but twisting in the air was a little slow and the landing appeared just a bit piked down. Would love to see her try the 1.5 or the Hristakieva to see if more amplitude could be obtained. She is in superb condition this year and really appears to be very focused and determined in her workouts.
Morgan Dennis: Huge Yurchenko 1/1, so high she almost couldn't spot her landing. We saw her throwing the DTY earlier in the pre-season and it seems natural that she would progress to this vault sooner than later, as the Y - 1/1 seems almost too easy for her at this point.
Ricki Lebegern: Yurchenko 1-1/2, huge vault in the air as well, one footed-hop forward on the landing. If Ricki can control her landing more consistently, look for this vault to move possibly to the anchor position, as her powerful run to the vault table and form throughout this vault are really impressive.
Brittany Magee: She has the form, amplitude and control with the Yurchenko 1/1 that is seldom matched. Powerful landing as well (almost stuck perfectly). Surely a Y-1.5 is not far behind.
Kassi Price: The frosh phenom seemed to be struggling a bit during vault warm-ups but she got her game face on quickly and nailed the Yurchenko 1.5 Kassi is a workhorse!
Ashley Ford: very impressive execution of the 1/2 on 1/2 off tuck, including a solid landing and nice form throughout. Ashley gets our "go to gymnast" award for the pre-season, working so hard to master skills that will help her provide a quality depth routine. At this point she has the best chances of performing on vault and balance beam (recently added a punch front) for the Tide in 2007.

Terin Humphrey

Cassie Martin, Terin Humphrey and Ashley O'Neal worked the same vault (Omeliantchik) later into the foam pit and then on the soft mats. Terin is ahead of schedule in her return on vault and showed several impressive reps on the soft mat. Cassie has been delayed a bit by illness but along with Ashley is expected to shore up the depth on this event by the beginning of the season. All three were impressive at Ghosts v Goblins with this same vault.

Some final Tidebits about balance beam practice reps.... Terin's first full practice rep on the beam was so impressive, she was showing no obvious favoring of her elbows during the flight series or the Omeliantchik skill. It was great to see her enjoying her new floor routine during the dance through as well. At this point, Bama has impressive, quality depth on balance beam and this will be matched closely by their depth on floor, followed next by vault, with manageable depth on the uneven bars barring a significant injury to one of the top eight routines at this point.

Bama enters the dead period allotted for exam preparations starting this Friday, December 8th, so all practices for the next two weeks will be voluntary in between their studying and exam schedules. The Tide will resume formal practices upon returning to the Capstone on December 26th and we will report on two that are scheduled for December 31st and January 7th. The season truly is just around the corner. Roll Tide!

The Medalist Club - Gymtide.com

The Booster Organization for the University of Alabama Gymnastics Program