The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Jeff Wick Freshman Stephanie McGregor is the lead-off competitor on Oregon State's vault and floor teams. The Calgary, Alberta native has a season high 9.825 on floor.

The alarm clock on the 2009 gymnastics season went off last weekend in Seattle, waking up the Oregon State gymnasts.

In gymnastics, the No. 8 Beavers were far from sleeping. However the team received quite a jolt when they placed third out of four teams at Washington, finishing behind two lower-ranked opponents in then-No. 24 Washington and then-No. 14 Illinois.

"We started out really well on bars - the bars team did a great job," senior D'Anna Piro said. "We moved to beam and had a few slip-ups there, but we didn't completely fall apart, which may not have been indicative by the scores. Every year you have to have one meet that is kind of a wake up call, and I think UW was our wake up call. We saw that if we are not on our 'A' game the other teams will be on their 'A' game."

Oregon State's rude awakening could not have come at a better moment, for a number of reasons. OSU is still searching for a score of 197 or higher - the closest the team has come to this mark was the 196.650 posted against Utah.

The timing of the wake up call is also perfect, because it comes with only three meets left in the season before the postseason begins. Oregon State will host back-to-back meets before competing at Missouri for its last dual meet of the season.

Had the wake up call come "any later it could have been disastrous," junior Mandi Rodriguez said. "There were positives that came out of Washington, but overall the team is more focused and we are not going to let that happen again. We are just giving everything we've got to the last three regular season meets and even more for Pac-10s."

With the postseason sneaking up on them, the Beavers are making a push to incorporate some new things into their team performance, be it new routines or new gymnasts in lineup. Last weekend's wake up call of a meet was the introduction of senior Jami Lanz's new floor routine, the first vault in a competition setting of the year for senior Tasha Smith and the first bars routine in front of spectators for freshman Olivia Vivian since Jan. 9.

Continued...

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