The gymnastics team will travel to Durham, N.H. on Saturday to compete in the 2010 EAGL championships in hopes of defending the title it won at Reynolds Coliseum in 2009. This year’s team has compiled a successful regular season thus far by having the highest average team score in the EAGL conference and the highest NCAA regional qualifying score as well. The Pack will look to duplicate its regular season totals as it attempts to win the championship for the third time in the last four years.
“I consider ourselves favorites because we are on the upswing after the meet last week,” freshman Rachel Fincham said. “It will be business as usual for our team going into this weekend.”
The Pack comes into EAGL weekend having blown by the Tribe of William and Mary by notching an overall score of 196.150 on senior night in Raleigh. This meet showed off the depth of the Wolfpack squad, as multiple members of the team scored above 9.7 for each event without having to count any falls. The only weak event for the Pack up until that meet had been the balance beam, but it seemed to get back on target versus William and Mary, as it had a higher score on beam than it did on vault. Two big pieces to the puzzle when it comes to beam are the consistent performances shown by sophomore Jess Panza and senior Taylor Seaman, who tied for first in winning the event last weekend.
“Last week gave us so much confidence and showed that we are capable of anything,” Panza said.
This year’s team is definitively different from last season’s squad that won the championship here in Raleigh, but there has been little drop off. Fincham and fellow freshman Morgan Johnson have come in and stepped up to be regular starters for the Pack. As a true freshman, Fincham ranks number one amongst all EAGL gymnasts for her performance on the uneven bars throughout the season. The Pack will rely heavily on these freshmen in order to achieve scores similar to ones recently posted against William and Mary.
“This is a different team and a different group of kids,” coach Mark Stevenson said. “Rachel and Morgan have come in and done a great job for us.”
Some members of last year’s championship-winning team currently on the roster will be called upon to contribute just as much, if not more, than their freshmen teammates. Upperclassmen who have shown consistently high performance totals all season include senior Taylor Seaman and sophomores Brooke Barr and Panza. Seaman has always been a top performer for the Pack, and she didn’t disappoint last week when she broke a new school record by compiling an all around score over 39 for the 16th time in her career. Panza and Barr have contributed in all events for most of the season and consistently scored high marks on all of them. These upperclassmen will look to utilize previous EAGL experience and perform at the level at which they have all season long, according to Panza.
“Last year I didn’t know what to expect,” Panza said. “It is louder, more intense, and there are more people there. Knowing that from last year, I now know what to expect.”
The EAGL championships, formed in 1996, were created because N.C. State and other schools from other conferences didn’t have a gymnastics-specific conference in which to compete. Stevenson and West Virginia coach Linda Burdette spearheaded the development of the EAGL conference in hopes of creating a championship that would allow teams one final shot at competing against each other in one meet.
“We didn’t have a season ending meet that would challenge our teams and make them work harder for the bigger score at the end,” Stevenson said.
Top teams from the EAGL conference include West Virginia, who has won the tournament six times since its inception, UNC-Chapel Hill, who has taken home three titles, and New Hampshire, who has won the event once.
