At last season’s Big Five Meet, Terrapins gymnastics sophomore Abbie Epperson said she gained an understanding of the event’s name.
“It was definitely overwhelming last year,” Epperson said. “It was way bigger than I thought it was going to be.”
Saturday, the Terps are hoping to use what they learned at the 2015 Big Five Meet and the experience from last week’s Maryland Five to help earn the best seed they can for the Big Ten Championships.
Last season’s Big Five may have been an eye-opener, but it’s only heightened the team’s sense of anticipation.
“We’re just excited to see all these great teams,” coach Brett Nelligan said.
Seeding for the Big Ten Tournament is determined via the Big Five meet. By this point in the season, each conference team has competed against all but four of the conference members. The teams will complete their schedules against the remaining teams at one of two Big Five meets.
“I know Big Five and Big Tens really mean something,” Epperson said.
Plus, after walking away from several meets unhappy with judging, the Terps are looking forward to the strong competition, though Nelligan said exact scores are less important because of the direction competition for seeding.
“I think we’ll be able to be up with the big dogs and be scored the same as the big dogs,” Epperson said.
Saturday will be the second meet in a row the Terps are one of five teams competing. Nelligan said that was unintentional — last week’s was scheduled to be a quad meet until a last-minute change — but he still thinks his team can take advantage of what they learned at the Maryland Five.
The Terps will have a bye in the first rotation Saturday, putting the team on the exact same schedule as last week. After the Maryland Five meet, Nelligan and his team were happy with how they handled their first bye of the season.
“It was pretty strange, but it was nice to start with the bye so you didn’t have an awkward 30-minute gap in between events,” freshman Megan McClelland said. “I don’t think it affected us too much.”
In addition, the Terps think the Maryland Five Meet taught another key lesson: the importance of keeping a competitive mindset.
The event came a week after the Terps capped off the busiest part of their schedule, which consisted of four meets in 10 days.
In the last three of those competitions, the Terps hit all 24 of their routines. They finished the final meet with a 196.025, their best score of the season by more than half a point.
The team followed that up with a 194.7 at the Maryland Five a week later.
“We seem to be better when we’re just really focused on competition,” Nelligan said after that performance. “This week we need to get back into competition mode.”
To do that, Nelligan and his team said, they brought the intensity level up during practices. And to simulate meets, they set up corrals for the team members to stand in, similar to what is used during postseason competitions.
The Terps are on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament with just two meets to go, but the team says they are built for this type of situation.
“We’re trying to keep that pressure on us because we’re good under pressure,” Epperson said. “And sometimes when we let it slip, then things don’t turn out the way we want.”
