Welcome Back Pioneer Fans!

With everyone back in the swing of things and into a regular schedule, this week proved to be another step in the right direction for our team. We started off the week on a high from our first home meet and were determined to work hard to improve for the next meet. It was a great week of practice involving new tactics to help us perform to our optimal level of performance when the meet rolls around. Every time I looked around the gym I saw people working hard and “putting money in the bank” as Coach always says.

With our meet being in Dallas, we got to have a podium training day at the Dallas Convention Center on Friday. It was great to get into the gym and train on the equipment before meet day. It was good experience for us and helped us to feel more comfortable performing on a podium. After training, senior Keri Miller’s parents invited the team to their house for a dinner. Feeding 18 starving ninjas in one area at the same time can be a very daunting task, but the Miller’s were ready for us! We had a great time and ate lots of good food. With many of us being from out of town, we really appreciate getting a home cooked meal. It was a great treat for us!

The next morning we all met at the parking lot to jump on the bus and begin our 30 minute drive to the meet. When we arrived, we went to our locker room, continued getting ready, and started our pre-meet rituals. The start of the meet was upon us and we were very excited. We marched out and stood on the podium to get announced and begin the meet. Our first event was floor and we rocked it! The floor team performed 7 solid sets and put the team in great position to go to vault. Vault proved to be another great event for us where yet again we executed 7 great routines. Bars was up next and we were ready to go. We had a few stumbles here and there but each time someone fell, someone was there to pick them back up. That is what it’s all about. Determined to do our jobs we headed over to beam. We started off with a fall, but picked it right back up in the next routine. We had another mistake later on, but again, we didn’t completely fall apart. This concluded our 4th meet of the year.

Overall, we were happy with our performance but are more determined than ever to get back into the gym to work hard and become more consistent. We have yet to put together a meet with no falls and we are determined to do it. We have a short week of practice ahead of us as we compete on Friday at the University of Oklahoma and then again at the Kitty Magee Arena on Sunday for our 2nd home meet.

As always, thank you for your continued support! Stay tuned next week to hear about our jam packed weekend! GO PIONEERS!! 1-2-3 Choj

Leslie Pladson
Senior