After being so incredibly consistent all year long, my favorite gymnastics team sort of melted down tonight. Not in general, but on balance beam, and that was enough to knock them out of the competition. We had to finish in one of the top three spots to advance to the Super Six competition tomorrow night, and we finished fifth. Out of six teams. Ouch. Even one of the "thanks for coming" teams finished ahead of us.
We hadn't had to count a fall all year. Not once. Tonight we had three falls on beam, which meant we had to count two of them. You just can't compete with the best in the country if you do that. We came back and absolutely ROCKED on vault, putting up the highest score we've had all year. But it was too little too late, and we had to sit and watch in the last rotation. Well, some of them sat and watched. Katydid, Frogger Blogger, and I left when we knew our team couldn't advance. We couldn't stand the thought of watching that Gator chomp (just typing the words makes me slightly nauseated) in the Florida floor routines.
On a positive note, it looks like we'll have three girls competing for individual event titles on Sunday. One of them will compete in three different events: vault, uneven bars, and floor exercise.
I'm disappointed, and I'm trying not to be bitter about how the season ended. It's one thing to get beat by better teams (and that may have happened also, but we'll never know), but it's a different animal altogether when you beat yourselves.
But I'm also proud of the team and all they accomplished this year. No one gave them much of a chance to come as far as they did, but they quietly went about their business and flew mostly under the radar. I'll get over my hurt feelings and pull for them just as hard next year.
To end on another positive note, now I don't have to worry about dashing over to watch the finals after the bicycle ride. I can ride as far as I want to.
Or as far as it takes to take the sting out of tonight. I hope we have that many roads in Georgia.
1 comment:
Feeling for the team, Bragger. I'm sorry it turned out like this, but there's next year, as you said. Hugs.
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