Hello Pioneer Fans! 

Welcome back to another exciting week of Pioneer gymnastics! As I’m sure you already know, the team was in Salt Lake City, Utah, this past week competing at the University of Utah. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us and definitely one we will never forget! We competed on Friday night in a quad meet against the number-one ranked University of Utah, Southern Utah, and BYU. The atmosphere was electric due to the 15,080 fans that filled the arena. The cheering was so loud that you could barely hear your own thoughts. It was definitely a little different than what we are used to at Pioneer Hall! The added excitement caused our team to have more fun and be more together than we have so far this season. 

We started the competition strong on floor, only having to count one mistake. We then went to vault where we hit 7 for 7! Bars continued the momentum hitting another 7 for 7. We finished the competition on beam and despite having to count 2 falls, everyone stayed calm, collected, and determined to compete at the level of our opponents. The atmosphere was great practice for Nationals and our five-team home meet coming up on February 27th. Hopefully the Pioneers will get another chance to compete in the Huntsman Center and next time take home a win! 

I would like to personally recognize this team for doing as well as we did in such a different and hectic environment. I have been on teams in the past that would have crumbled under the pressure of competing in such a big arena in front of so many fans, but we held our own and competed like we belonged there. Several Ute fans even complimented us on our performance and one fan even said that they were impressed with our team’s unity and teamwork throughout the meet. 

This coming weekend we are at home competing against Arizona on Sunday afternoon, Feb 15th at 2pm. Since our meet isn’t until Sunday, we have a full week to train and continue to improve our routines for the upcoming meet. So come support us on Sunday at our Think Pink meet for breast cancer awareness and check back next week for more gymnastics news!

Jennifer Kingsbury
Go Pioneers!