Junior captain Stephanie Giameo celebrates with her teammates during the Terps’ victory over George Washington, Pittsburgh, and Towson on Feb. 10, 2014
This season, the Terrapins gymnastics team has focused on building energy as meets progress. But during the postseason, in which teams have byes during some rotations, the Terps have had to make adjustments in their preparation.
The Terps have used their two weeks of practice before the NCAA Regionals at Penn State tomorrow to simulate the atmosphere and delays. The team overcame the altered schedule as a result of the byes in the East Atlantic Gymnastics League Championships in Durham, N.H., where the Terps posted their season-best total.
“It’s quite an emotional roller coaster,” freshman Sarah Faller said. “We definitely learned that at EAGL when we had a bye between every single event, which we hadn’t had yet this season.”
While the Terps won’t have a bye between every event at Regionals, they will have some after they start on beam and before they finish on bars to conclude the meet.
To prepare for what they will experience tomorrow, coach Brett Nelligan had the team simulate the meet in practice last Friday. It also kept the Terps in rhythm because last weekend was their first week without an official meet since the season started Jan. 10.
“It’s actually really hard to go from competing every week to not competing,” Nelligan said. “We did all four events. We just pretended it was a real meet. We had scorers. We did everything just to keep them all on track.”
When the Terps traveled to Gainesville, Fla., last year for the NCAA Regionals, they competed before an announced crowd of 7,137, more than double the attendance recorded at the EAGL Championships.
Other teams in the Terps’ region are more accustomed to the big-meet atmosphere, including No. 1 Florida, which competed before an announced 12,301 in a road meet against Alabama this season.
So Nelligan took it a step further in practice to help the Terps prepare for the atmosphere and surroundings they will deal with in University Park, Pa.
“We blast recorded crowd noise from Maryland-Duke basketball games,” Nelligan said. “And then we finish the event and make them sit there and wait for 15 minutes. We really try to mimic what they are going to see so they are not surprised by anything.”
The Terps hope their preparations help them secure a spot in the top two spots, which would allow them to move on to the NCAA Semifinals on April 18 in Birmingham, Ala. But they also are looking for redemption against conference foe New Hampshire.
After losing to the Wildcats twice on the road, including a second-place finish in the EAGL Championship, the Terps have a chance to top New Hampshire at a neutral site.
“We definitely want another shot at them,” Nelligan said. “It stung coming up second to them at EAGL.”
So tomorrow, the Terps hope their two weeks of preparation help them overcome the unusual postseason meet structure. And coming off two consecutive season bests, the Terps are hoping to pull off some upsets at Penn State.
“We have everything to gain and nothing to lose going into Regionals,” junior captain Stephanie Giameo said. “We shouldn’t really look at it as our last meet because you don’t know what can happen.”
