Gymnasts prepare for 1st home meet
After opening the season with two meets on the road, Utah State gymnastics Head Coach Ray Corn is excited to compete in the Spectrum Friday night.
“It’s good to come home,” Corn said.
The Aggies (4-4) will be competing against Southern Utah (4-1). The Thunderbirds are coming off a victory over Cal State, and beat the Aggies twice last season.
Corn said Friday’s meet will still be like a road meet for the team, because they haven’t competed in the Spectrum yet, especially for the team’s four freshmen – Gretchen Goerlitz, Alex Martin, Stacy Stewart and Courtney Arno, who won’t be competing because of an injury.
The team is currently ranked at second in the Western Gymnastics Conference and seventh in the North Central Region.
“This team is so good,” said assistant coach Ernestine Russell. “Now all they have to do is to show everyone.”
Russell has been with the Utah State team for two years. She was the head coach for Florida and an Olympic head coach in 1976 and 1980.
Russell was retired before she came to take the assistant coach spot at Utah State.
“I wanted to be back in college,” she said.
She said that once you’re in the gym, it comes down to the sport and the kids, whether you’re in the Olympics, Florida or Utah.
The team will be led by its all-arounders, Martin and Goerlitz. Co-captain Rachel Ropelato will be resting this meet, as an all-arounder.
Because of the small number of girls, they all get a chance to compete.
Or as Russell put it, every girl knows she matters and it forces each girl to step up and do her best.
Corn compares gymnastics to a play – once the lights turn on, he wants everyone on cue with only very minor mistakes.
Although the Aggies are without three of their gymnasts due to injuries, Arno, Meagan Nelson and Jessica Parenti, they have yet to experience a serious injury this season.
All three gymnasts’ injuries are from last season. Nelson and Parenti have started initial training.
“The girls are great to work with,” assistant coach Jeff Graba said. “It will be even more fun when we realize how good we are.”
The top scorers for the vault are Goerlitz and Rachael Mandy.
For the bars, it’s Martin, Ashley Barr and Ropelato.
For the beam, Kohler, Goerlitz, co-captain Katie Rutherford and Stewart will take the lead.
The overall team score is calculated by taking the top five scores from each event, and the lowest score is dropped. The score then makes up the event total score, which is then added to the other event scores. All the event scores added up make up the overall team score.
The meet will be Friday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m.
-vramirez@cc.usu.edu