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Show Gymnastics squad seeking to improve Coach Kathryn Berg knows it, and she's doing all she can to get the word to her Southern Utah State College gymnastics squad. The message is simple: The very best thing the Thunderbirds can do to improve their team score is to make improvements on the balance beam and in floor exercise. Just how well Berg and her gymnasts have responded to their task will be domonstrated Saturday in Price when the T-Birds compete with College of Eastern Utah and Ricks College in a three-way meet. Competition starts at 10:30 a.m. Southern Utah hopes were dampened somewhat this week with the news that freshman Brenda Shaw (Kearns) will not be able to compete com-pete for the remainder of the season because of a shoulder injury. She was expected to be one of the top all-around per- HHHiBlBaH formers for the T-Birds this year. In two meets this year, SUSC has finished behind Ricks twice and ahead of CEU twice. "Ricks has excellent strength in the floor exercise; we are probably at least as strong in the other events," Berg explains. "We have spent the majority of our time in the last week working on the beam and the floor exercise. It looks like we've made some good improvement on the beam, but I still worry about the floor exercise." Three T-Bird will be among the favorites for the all-around title in the meet. Mechele Hebberd (freshman, Riverton) has led SUSC in all-around in its first two meets. She averages 28.9 points. Also capable of all-around all-around honors are Janet Howell (senior, West .Jordan) and Janet Jorgensen (freshman, Richfield). Howell's strengths have been the vault and the bars, while Jorgensen normally makes more points in the vault and floor exercise. "This is the first year that Janet (Jorgensen) has competed on the bars. Her scores are not nearly as high now as they will be when she gets some experience, " Berg says. Following this week's meet, SUSC will compete Feb. 14 at Alamosa, Colorado, against some of the top college division teams' in the area in an invitational hosted by Adams State. Competition will include in-clude Adams State (ranked no. 3 in the NAIA), Southern Colorado (ranked no. 4 in the NAIA), Denver University, Air Force Academy, and Western State. "That meet will provide excellent experience ex-perience for us going against top flight competition," com-petition," Berg says. |
