The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/28/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Sam Leinen Jami Lanz, continually the team's best perfomer in the all-around, has helped the Beavers earn wins on the road the past couple of weeks, proving they don't have to be in Gill to do well.

The Beavers are on a roll.

The No. 11 Oregon State gymnastics team had shown incredible inconsistency away from Gill Coliseum until last Friday, when they earned their highest team score of the season, 196.975, the 11th best team score in OSU history. This score is the second time the Beavers have reached 196 points in a row this season.

Earlier in the season, experienced gymnasts Tasha Smith and Yuki Lamb suffered injuries, and the loss took its toll on the Beavers. Most notably, it caused a disturbance in the vault and floor lineups. With both competitors out of the vault lineup, the Beavers totaled their lowest vault score of the season with a 48.375 against California.

Then recently, floor and beam contributor Claire Pierce suffered a torn ACL, ending her season. Injuries have caused the Beavers to make changes to their rotations.

"I don't know that you can ever avoid injuries in our sport," coach Tanya Chaplin said. "It is day to day with different athletes at different times."

The ability to come through in the clutch is an essential quality in a gymnast. The necessity to perform a flawless routine, under the scrutiny of different judges, is crucial to a strong and consistent performance. Being such a young team with no seniors, the Beavers had struggled to find consistency.

In a sport that demands individual pressures on the competitors, the key to a victory is developing the capacity to cope and overcome pressures of competition. The team has focused on competing as a team - they refer to it as their "OSU bubble" - in an effort to feed off one another's energy.

"We just cope with it by feeding off of each other," sophomore Jami Lanz said, "and giving each other confidence and believing in each other."

In Oregon State's first six meets of the season, the Beavers fell into a win-loss cycle associated with whether or not they were competing on their home floor. Equipment and atmospheres differ from gym to gym, which is likely to cause variations in a gymnast's performance. This cycle was broken with their triangular meet last Friday against Washington and Seattle Pacific as OSU finally discovered the secret to consistency.

Continued...

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