This past weekend, on the main deck of the Fieldhouse, two nationally ranked teams took it to the floor in a Big 10 battle. One team, known for its power and clean gymnastics, traveled more than four hours to the quaint town of Iowa City. The other, more recently noticed for its extreme potential and well-presented gymnastics, was at home and ready to take down a competitor well within their competition level. The energy was high. The enthusiasm was there. However fate would have a different story to tell that evening.
The No. 9 Hawkeyes would fall to the No. 7 Minnesota Gophers that evening in the Men's Competition. As the Lady Hawks battled out a victory over the Denver Pioneers, our Men found it difficult to do the same.
The competition began on the Floor Exercise where right away, many falls were a result of most routines. From the outside looking in, a combination of nerves and the desire to beat the Gophers all pitched in to why the sometimes "un-knowingly" talented team lost. As the meet proceeded on through Pommel Horse, Rings, and the Vault it seemed that the routines were getting slightly better. There were some good landings on Vault and a couple solid Rings performances. Yet after four rotations the Hawks were still down behind the Gophers by at least 3 points; a deficit that was nowhere near impossible for the Hawkeyes to overcome. But unfortunately, fate had to put in her last "two cents" during the final two rotations.
The Horizontal Bar and the Parallel Bars in particular, were the icing on the cake to seal the Gophers with a win. Uncharacteristic falls, small mishaps and bobbles on the swinging events all added up in staggering points as to why the Hawks were unable to come from behind. Despite the numerous mistakes some gymnasts in the competition shined through to give impressive scores. Senior Michael Jiang performed a flawless routine on the High Bar while Freshman Javier Balboa wowed the crowd with a difficult and clean Parallel Bar routine. In addition Senior John Haines put up cleran Floor and Rings routines while So. Anton Gryshayev proved himself again with a 1st place finish on Rings. Even though clean hits were provided at times, it was not enough to patch up the damage that had already been done. The Hawks would lose to the Gophers, going 336.500 to 330.1; a disappointing season low.
After the competition, the promotion team was able to have a post meet Q & A with Head Coach JD Reive about today’s meet.
Q: What were your thoughts on today’s competition?
A: Quite disappointing to be honest. We came in today’s meet pretty confident and coming off of a good week of practice in the gym. The guys were a little un-focused in that their mindset needed to be on doing their best and not simply winning the meet. We will have to work on that this week for Nebraska next Saturday night.
Q: Now that we are just about halfway through the season, is this where you envisioned the Hawks to be?
A: Physical yes they are 100% well prepared. We were ready for today’s competition but mentally they are still not quite together. Once they gain that confidence we will be just fine.
Q: We saw a lot of new skills today in certain guys routines. Did you expect any falls to correlate with the increased difficulty?
A:[Laughing] Well there were some scary mishaps today but overall these men are more than prepared to do these skills. They have done them numerous times and will be fine once their heads stay on their shoulders.
Some Reminders and News!
1) Home Meet next Saturday, Feb. 19th @ 7 P.M. in the Fieldhouse against the Nebraska Cornhuskers! Be there!
2) We sold over 100 wristbands at the Minnesota Home Meet! If you didn’t get a chance to get yours, be at the next home meet and secure your band!
3) New GymFace Album, Vote for the funniest!
4) Skill of the Week Quiz 1! How well have YOU been paying attention to the skills?!
5) See who will win February's Profiled Hawkeye! Video coming soon!
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