UK gymnastics to host DanceBlue Meet
January 30, 2015
By Leslie Hobbs
UK gymnastics will host the second annual DanceBlue Meet at Memorial Coliseum on Friday when the Cats face No. 6 Alabama.
UK is looking to bounce back from a road loss to No. 10 Georgia on Sunday. Junior captain Alexis Gross and junior Khadijah Hudson will not compete in Friday’s event after suffering knee injuries in the last meet.
Head coach Tim Garrison said the team had a discussion on the ride home from Georgia about refocusing and regrouping after the loss.
“We were open with each other, we communicated well and they were upbeat from the meet, which was a good sign,” Garrison said. “We need to leave that one behind us and move forward to get the next one under our belts.”
Junior Marissa Beucler, who competed for the first time all season after replacing the injured Gross, placed first and second in the three events she competed in.
“Every obstacle we go through, we go through as a team,” Beucler said. “This just made us stronger and I know that we’re going to build off of it throughout the season.”
Senior Shannon Mitchell said she takes great pride in being a team leader, especially when the team is trying to recover from a recent loss. Mitchell said the team still has high expectations for the end of the season.
“This is the most talented team I’ve competed with, and I really think we can shock some people and make it to Nationals in April,” Mitchell said. “We are still very capable with the depth we have on our team.”
All proceeds of the meet, including auctioning off the players’ special gold warmup tops, will go to DanceBlue 2015, a fundraiser for UK’s Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Clinic.
The team has also dedicated its season to Kylie Rowand, a two-year-old with stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma. Rowand is the daughter of Bree Rowand, a former gymnast for Garrison when Garrison was the coach for California.
