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Gymnastics Sectional nears, might be last for head coach

February 29, 2008

By: Lily Zhao <lzhao@hilite.org>

With her hands powdered and her mind set, Dani Goeman, gymnastics captain and sophomore, gets set to practice attempting the vault, bars, beam and floor. Not only does she strive to get better at these four routines, but she will also be performing all of them at the upcoming gymnastics Sectional.

“It would be really good (to get out of Sectional),” Goeman said. “Because this is such a small group, (getting to Regional) will be great because it really shows that we earned it.”

According to Head Coach Jerry Brickley, the gymnastics Sectional will be at Warren Central on Saturday, with 12 to 13 teams represented. Last year, the gymnastics team finished fifth at State, but this year, Brickley said his goals is for his team to do something that it has never done before: break 100. By doing so, he said, it would give the team a good chance of getting out, or moving on to Regional. For Brickley, who plans to retire from coaching after this season, this will be his last time coaching the team at Sectional, or at all. He said that with” (the season) is winding down, it will be a little surreal (when the season is over)”.

“My focus right now is on the girls,” Brickley said. “I’m really proud of them.”

Brickley also said that at Sectional, there is a totally different environment than at regular meets. He said that he enjoys the Sectional for the pressure and that the team has to be coordinated and calm in order to do well. He also said that because there is a lot of pressure, he thrives on it.

For Goeman, she said that for her Sectional is not any different from regular practices.

“You get a huge adrenaline rush and Sectional is longer (than regular meets),” said. “But we know that if we don’t do well, our season might be done.”

In order to achieve that 100-point score and move onto Regional as a team, Brickley said that he is “always fighting for those tenths (on the score).” He said that the team is currently throwing new skills and fine-tuning its current routines. He said that scoring in gymnastics is much different from any other score because on the bars, beam and floor there are levels of difficulty. He said that the judges give you points based off of what skills are put into the routine; eight skills are a requirement. Also, skills include releases on bars or full turns on beams; the most important, Brickley said, was execution, where the judges automatically start off with four points and deduct from there.

“They’ve really worked hard at breaking 100. If we move on that would be great,” he said.

Now while this is his last season, Brickley said he has had some highlights this season. He said that it’s “always fun when you work someone through a mental block.” But his defining moment of the season was at the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference (MIC) meet, when Goeman scored a perfect 8.8 on the vault and the judges called him over to tell him that she had a perfect score.

Brickley’s other defining moment he said that he also enjoys seeing the girls hanging out as a team; that they really love to be in one another’s company. It is moments like these, along with the memories of several crashes where gymnasts have landed on him, which he said he will cherish.

Goeman said that while she is looking forward to seeing the Warren Central gymnasts again because they are all good friends, she said that she hopes that this good year will be accented with a Sectional win. She said if the team does move out of Sectional, it will still be great because “this year, we were not really focusing on scores.”

According to Brickley, he said that he knows his girls will perform well because they have worked out all season. Due to its strenuous and dedicated work ethic, last year’s Sectional brought a lot of students here to support their gymnastics team.

“(Gymnastics) is different. It is unlike any other sports contest,” Brickley said. “It’s seeing things that you won’t believe. Some girls can really move their bodies in a way that it really seems that they can fly.”

Updated by John Zhong · Filed Under Sports 

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