Welcome to Week 15 - Conference!

Hi everyone, 

Welcome to Week 15! This is a BIG week for our team and each of our gymnasts.  

Week 14 Recap:

At the Craig dual, we scored a 123.35! We had 3 No Fall Stars and 6 Sticky Feet. We had some sickness going around so even though we didn't compete our usual line up for JV and Varsity, the team pushed through.  

On Saturday, the Varsity squad competed in Whitefish Bay and secured a 2nd place award as well as multiple individual placements! We scored a 125.25 (our new 2nd highest score of the season) and had the following individual placers: 

• Cami Hurley - placed 2nd on bars, 7th on beam, and 4th for all around. 

• Mia Walz - placed 5th on bars and 7th on floor. 

• Tenzin Kyizom - place 8th on floor 
  

We were also joined by Sierra and Natalie - who did an amazing job supporting the team and coaches. Thank you Sierra and Natalie for your support! 

We also had TWO new additions to the Hall of Fame last week as well. Please join me in congratulating Grace and Mel on their additions! Mel and Grace completed a double goal knock out the week before when they both got their back half twist on floor! This skill is a big deal because one of the best ways to boost a score on floor is to add twisting to it. Each of them have been working SO hard and their addition to the Hall of Fame was long overdue. We are so proud of you! 

Week 15 Schedule:

Monday: Practice from 5 - 7 PM. 

Tuesday:  Practice from 5 - 7 PM. 

Wednesday:  Practice from 5 - 7 PM.   

Thursday: Practice from 5 - 7 PM.

Friday: Practice from 5:30 - 7 PM, with gym setup afterwards. 

Saturday: Conference! See below for details. 

Conference:

Conference is a competition between all the Big 8 conference schools and while it's run similar to Spartan Invite, it's much shorter since we have significantly less teams. This is a JV and Varsity meet, where we will have 5 JV gymnasts compete and 5 Varsity gymnasts compete. I set the lineup for Conference slightly different than any other meet. I ensure that EVERY gymnast on the team is able to compete, regardless of where their scores would have placed them. I ask each gymnast to rank their preferred order of events they would want to compete and do my best to ensure everyone is happy with what they compete. We also crown an 'All Around Queen' for the JV squad. This gymnast is chosen based on their ability to compete all four events (a task that is tricky to do) and who has shown exceptional sportsmanship, diligence, and bravery throughout the season. I will release the All Around Queen on Monday at practice.  

The meet is at Memorial this year and I am asking parents to help sign up for a fair amount of spots related to running the meet. If parents are able to sign up for 2 to 3 rounds, that will help ensure the meet runs smoothly.

We will also host a hospitality room (similar to Spartan) and are looking for donations to that room to feed coaches and judges.

The schedule for the day is below: 

Schedule: 

8:30 AM: Arrive at Memorial 

9:00 AM: General Warm Ups 

9:50 AM: March In 

10:00 AM: Warm up round 1 starts 

10:10 AM: Meet officially starts 

3:00 PM: Rough guess that awards will start at this time 

3:30 PM: Meet completes! 

We compete the following rounds: 

Round 2: Bars

Round 4: Beam 

Round 6: Floor 

Round 8: Vault 

Team Fundraising (Stache Cups)

We paired up with Stache to design Spartan themed thermal cups and water bottles. We also have a Spartan Invite specific design available. This fundraising will go until the end of February and the goal is to sell a minimum of 50 items. The return from Stache is pretty incredible - $10 of every item sold comes directly back to the team. If we meet our fundraising goal of 50 items sold, we will make $500 for the team. My intention is to use these funds to purchase new leos for two seasons from now - however, each leo is upwards of $100. So we have lots of fundraising to do!

Please share this information with family, friends, coworkers, and more. I am excited to kick off our first official fundraiser for the team.The link to the store is below as well as some marketing material:  

Tuesday Reports:

Tuesday reports are required this week. Send a picture of your report to me (Danielle)

Post Conference:

In planning for Sectionals, we will have our Sectional Squad announced this week as well. The Sectional squad consists of the gymnasts and alternates that will be slated to compete at Sectionals next Thursday. 

After Conference, any gymnast that is not slated to compete at Sectionals (or is an alternate) is no longer required to attend practices, however, they are more than welcome to continue to come to practice if they would like to continue to work out. Any gymnast not slated for sectionals is still required to come to practice on Monday (2/19) to fill out their scores, have a quick check in with me, and talk about post season information. Non-competitors are also required to come to Sectionals to support their team mates that are still competing. 

If we were to have anyone qualify for State, we would continue practice into the last week of February. If we don't have anyone qualify, we will still keep the gym up and be offering coach / gymnast practices during that time frame. Any gymnast looking to join the coaches for a work out are more than welcome to do so while we wait for the highschool workshops to open up. I will release more information about this post conference but if girls want additional, low pressure gym time at the end of season, know that it will be available. 

Gym Tear Down:

Mark your calendars! Gym tear down will be Sunday, March 3rd, at noon (12:00 PM). This event is required for all Memorial and West gymnasts. Because it's a tear down event, we usually don't need any parent assistance as it's pretty straight forward. Girls should be done LIKELY around 2:00 PM. Again - this event IS required!  

Banquet Plan:

As we near the end of season, I will start to think about planning the banquet for sometime in mid-April. Post season, I make a transition out of Memorial and back to Badger while also helping plan the Senior Nationals gymnastics trip. Because the transition is moderately chaotic, I push our banquet out to April to give me time to transition smoothly. If you have any dates in April you know don't work for your family, please send along to me so I can plan appropriately. Our banquet will likely be on a Sunday and be at Bishops Bay Country Club. 

That’s all I can think of for know. Please reach out with questions. Let's make it a great week!

Cheers! 

-Danielle