Junior Leah Slobodin made an all-around impact for the Terrapins gymnastics team last season. After missing all of her freshman campaign with a torn Achilles tendon, she competed in beam, floor and vault in 2015.
That has changed this year, though, as two injuries have limited Slobodin to only competing on floor. Her Achilles continues to bother her — she still wears a protective boot — and she underwent shoulder surgery last summer to mend a tear she suffered a year ago.
“The shoulder limited me on bars,” Slobodin said. “And my foot pain affects, like, everything.”
Slobodin’s adjustment process continued during the Terps’ meet Sunday against Rutgers, but she delivered with a season-best 9.80 in her lone routine despite her team’s 194.85-194.425 defeat at Xfinity Center.
“It’s been hard for her, she’s in a lot of pain,” coach Brett Nelligan said. “But we rely on her to get us started on floor and she does a great job.”
The Terps headed to floor, their final rotation of the meet, trailing the Scarlet Knights by half a point. They needed a strong performance to give them a chance at making up the deficit, and Slobodin stepped up.
“I try to bring high energy to get the party started,” Slobodin said.
The Alexandria, Virginia, native nabbed her best score of the year on the event, and her teammates followed suit by earning a 48.95 overall score. Their showing cut the gap, but it wasn’t enough to earn the win.
Even so, the junior has posted a 9.70 or higher in three of the team’s five meets, helping the team’s scores on one of two events the team’s scored higher than a 49.00 on.
Last season, Slobodin helped the Terps in other ways, too, performing the final 10 meets on beam while competing on vault and floor five times apiece. She also competed on beam, the rotation in which she owns her highest score (9.85), at the Pittsburgh Quad-Meet to start this year.
But she earned a 9.35 at the event, the second-lowest score of her career, and has been used exclusively on floor since.
The Terps commend her positivity — they said she always has a smile on her face — but they know that she’s frustrated by the injuries.
“Obviously she would like to do more, and that’s something she deals with every day,” Nelligan said. “But at this point, her body’s just not letting her.”
The setup of the meet causes more problems for Slobodin, who for the most part only wears the protective boot on meet days. She said she had to have issues standing for long periods of time on apparatus, but she has since gotten used to it.
Included in that new normal is Slobodin taking her boot off, performing her floor routine and putting the boot right back on. Eventually, she hopes to take the boot off more than once while she performs on multiple events.
For now, though, she’s focused on contributing on floor, just as she did when she scored a 9.80 against the Scarlet Knights.
“She’s putting her personal disappointment aside,” Nelligan said, “and doing what she can for the team.”
