University of Minnesota Athletics
Post-Regional Championship Quotes
4/12/2008 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
Utah head coach Greg Marsden
On the Utes' performance...
“We really struggled on bars. We did a really good job battling out of that. We had two or three covers on [bars] it wasn’t an exceptionally strong start for us. I thought our beam performance was pretty good. I’m not sure if our scores completely reflect that. Floor was a mixed bag there was some good stuff and there were some little mistakes. We didn’t have to count a fall the whole night, so that was a good thing. It’s not like we made any big mistakes, but it just didn’t go easily for us tonight. Our finish event, however, was fantastic. I’m not sure we could vault any better than we did tonight.
“This is a great [meet] to get behind us, because there is always a lot of pressure going into the regional. If you come here and have three falls on beam or something, then it’s Arkansas and Minnesota going to nationals instead of us. This is a scary meet, and we feel a lot of pressure, but we’re glad to have it behind us.”
All-around champion Ashley Postell of Utah
“It’s nice that we got this meet over with and now we’re on to the next big thing that everyone’s been waiting for. We did really well tonight, but tonight was more about qualifying [for nationals.] It’s always nice to have done your best and to come out with a big win.”
Minnesota co-head coach Meg Stephenson
On the team's regional performance...
“It was an awesome crowd and it defiantly helped up. But also with that, there was a little more pressure and we were really pleased with how they handled that. We felt all year that we were better then what we were ranked and tonight we proved that. We were just really excited with how we did.”
On the Big Ten championships...
“I would not say that we were disappointed in the Big Ten because we had a mistake on beam that we had to count but otherwise we had an awesome meet there. We really did wonderful on the other events. What was disappointing was that we didn’t score higher. What was nice about tonight, we always tell the team to be sticklers for form and emphasizing that it will pay off when it comes down to it and tonight it did.”
On Camelina Carabajal advancing to nationals...
“What you saw tonight is what she does every day in the gym. She is one of those kids who trains how she wants to compete so that took a lot of effort and energy to do it day after day after day. So for her to come in here and done that all year long and have her pay off the way it did tonight, she deserves it. The bottom line is that she is an awesome gymnasts and her work ethic is second to none. We are really excited to have her on that National stage.”
Minnesota Junior Camelina Carabajal
On her performance...
“I am really excited about Nationals and tonight couldn’t have gone better.”
On the Big Ten Championships...
“What we try to do is forget the past and focus on the present. That has been a big deal on our team this year. We just focused on tonight, having fun, and doing our best. I think we accomplished all three of those things. I think we did really well.”
On the Gophers coming in as the sixth seed...
“It is awesome. We always knew we were better than the 6th seed. It feels great and it is really exciting. We always knew we were that good. We are not surprised but we are happy.”
On the overall competition...
“The energy was just great. You walk in and there was a ton of more fans then we usually have. We got our highest attendance ever. That was amazing to have that audience. Seeing all of the people here created a great atmosphere.”