University of Minnesota Athletics
In My Own Words: Bailie Holst
4/27/2016 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
Recap the Gophers incredible 2016 season through the team's perspective.
By Bailie Holst
I feel we have come leaps and bounds from last year in our team atmosphere, culture and ability. All of last year, we knew we had the ability to do great things, but just didn't have the time to get to where we wanted to before the season started. We worked so incredibly hard all preseason and made sacrifices that I now know were completely worth it. We set goals every day in the gym and made every turn count. When this season finally came, we couldn't wait to show off everything we worked so hard for.
As the season went on, we kept building our scores, confidence and success. Moving into the Big 5 meet, we knew we had a shot to claim at least the co-Big Ten Regular-Season Championship title, but didn't really focus on it at all. We went in and had a great time. I think the reason we did so well was because we stayed calm the entire meet and just embraced every moment with each other. To then have an amazing Beam rotation, a great team score and ultimately win the Big Ten Regular-Season championship....well, that was a cherry on top of the competition!
Moving then to Big Tens, I think we had the Big Ten title a little bit too much on our minds. We had a good meet, but didn't compete like we know how. It was definitely a really fun trip and we had a lot of fans that came to support us. I think we were slightly disappointed because we knew we could have given the winning teams a run for their money. However, we couldn't dwell on it, because we knew we had bigger and better goals to accomplish.
With the NCAA Regionals at home, we knew we had a great opportunity to make it to Nationals, but it wouldn't be easy. Deep down, we all had a little more comfort knowing that we would be working towards a goal we had fought for all season long in front of our home crowd. Walking into the Sports Pavilion, we could feel that something special was about to happen. We made it! We did it! We had accomplished our biggest goal and it was a total team effort.
The week of Nationals we were all so giddy. It was hard to focus during practice. But, we all held each other accountable and made sure every single turn was as perfect as possible. We all realized what we were really capable of and came together as a team more than I ever knew possible.
When we finally got to Fort Worth, Texas it all set in. The arena was great, but during the practice day, we had a few things we had to get used to. The lights were really bright, the floor extremely bouncy and all the rules of competing on podium were pretty overwhelming. But, when it came down to the day of competition, we were all prepped and ready.
I had one of my best performances on Floor and Vault, but was extremely disappointed with my fall on Bars. You could tell everyone on the team felt the frustration from all the struggles during that rotation. We knew we were better than that. But, we picked each other up and I am so proud of our beamers and seniors for finishing out the competition like we knew how. As disappointed as we were, we were also proud of ourselves. We came so far in just one year!
I think I can speak for all of the team that we are extremely sad to see the seniors go. They've done so much for our team and have helped us grow into an extremely successful program. I can't wait to see what next year holds with six incoming freshman. The team is going to grow in every aspect and we will accomplish even more success next year!
#AlwaysGolden
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