First meet jitters and jinx
Cambridge , MA 1/8/00 .......
As we have done every year for the past four seasons, we opened our competition schedule against the University of Bridgeport. This time around though, Springfield College also came to town. At MIT we are lucky to have 7 new members on our team and 5 of them got a chance to compete right away in the first meet.
The nerves and inexperience showed, but overall it was a very positive performance by most of our new members which included Tanya Burka (Dresher, PA), Lindsey Wolf (Canadaigua, NY), Deb Dryer (Jenison, MI), Caitlin Dwyer-McNally (Brockport, NY) and Carrie Garceau (Portage, MI). The reason we mention 'most' of them and not 'all' of them is because unfortunately, we were hit by the injury bug. Our two first-year students who figured to make the biggest impact on the team this year will see very limited action all year because of major injuries. Carrie Garceau sprained her ankle in the fall and has developed into severe tendonitis in her ankle. We'll be very lucky if Carrie can swing bars all year with very basic dismounts. All other events for this all-arounder will have to wait until next year. And, on the first event of her first college meet, Deb Dryer tore a ligament in her knee (on a tuck tsukahara on vault). Deb will miss the entire year and more than likely will require reconstructive surgury to repair the ligament. After 5 virtually injury free years at MIT, it seems that this year we are making up for our good health and fortune over the last half-decade.
All of the factors above, compounded by the fact that we were missing our top all-around gymnast (Sonja Ellefson '01) to a week long class trip contributed to a team score of 159.425 and a third place finish to Bridgeport's 176.10 and Springfield College's 176.175. Some of our upperclass-women turned in very solid performances for the first meet, including sophomore Amy Shui's (Andover, MA) 33.75 in the all-around. Junior Liz Ellingson (Eden Prairie, MN) had a good overall meet leading the team with a solid 8.7 on beam and a 9.2 on floor. Sophomore Cecile LeCocq (Menlo Park, CA) also had a solid performance on vault 8.2 and floor 8.85, and our two seniors Robin Chui (Hong Kong) and Stephanie Cheng (Stamford, CT) also performed well. For Springfield, it was the first time they had ever beaten the University of Bridgeport, and for a first meet, their team performed very well. But there must have been something in the air on that day because one of Bridgeport's top all-arounders Teri-Ann Buncheck, broke her ankle in warm-ups doing a tsukahara vault as well.
Putting the injuries aside, it was a very promising meet for the new young MIT team which will now have to step up big in order to try to make up for nine solid routines from our Michigan connection of Deb and Carrie. Our next home meet will be next Saturday January 15th, a double-dual meet (men and women) vs Southern Connecticut State University. Hope to see you there if you can make it.