Event Upgrades to Boost Performance at Pacific Coast Classic

Event Upgrades to Boost Performance at Pacific Coast Classic
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2009

Senior Joe Catrambone (Deptford, N.J./Gloucester Catholic) keeps the men's gymnastics blog going, taking some time to talk about the team's upcoming trip to Oakland, Calif., for the Pacific Coast Classic. Last year at the competition, Catrambone paced the Wolverines by winning the high bar title with 15.350. This season, Catrambone has been recovering from an injury but competed for the first time against UIC (Feb. 7) where he took home the high bar crown (14.550) and the Newt Loken Award for his outstanding performance.

Having last weekend off from competition was a big advantage for our team. We were able to upgrade some of our routines and clean up certain skills that we have been having trouble with and getting deductions on. When we're competing every weekend, it's hard to add difficulty to our routines or fix the problem areas that need work.

Vault was the biggest improvement for the team. We've increased start values from a 15.4 to a 16.2, which is a big jump. Freshman Syque Caesar has been doing an amazing job on upgrading his vault by adding a full twist to the routine that he was already doing. This week he has been performing a "Kasamatsu full," which is a roundoff onto the table and a double twisting back flip off this week.

Some others who have been working the same vault are sophomore Ben Baldus-Strauss, who has come back from an injury in the first meet very nicely, and redshirt freshman Andrew Vance, who has been showing great improvements each week. Sophomore Thomas Kelley and junior Mel Anton Santander have been performing difficult vaults as well, also scored from a 16.2. The vault that they are performing is known as "Yurchenko double full," which is a roundoff onto the board, a back handspring onto the vaulting table and a double twisting back flip off.

Other guys on the team are working an even harder vault scored from a 16.6, which is one of the most difficult vaults being performed in college and by Olympic-level athletes. This vault is known as a "handspring double front"-- a handspring onto the vault table and a double front flip off. Seniors Jamie Thompson and Ralph Rosso have been doing a great job at working on these consistently to help the team. Junior and co-captain David Chan performs this vault as well as anyone in the world. He gives our team a huge boost on vault and has really been trying to focus on the landing much more than he had previously been doing. It is great to see so many guys on our team taking the initiative to upgrade vault, which has been a struggle for us from the beginning of the season until now. Vault will be an extremely important event for us this weekend at the Pacific Coast Classic.

Some other upgrades on other events are redshirt freshman Andrew Vance and sophomore Chris Cameron on rings. Vance has upgraded his ring dismount to a double layout with a full twist. Chris, who has been named Big Ten Gymnast of the Week twice this season, added a skill on rings to increase his start value to a 16.1, one of the highest in the country on that event.

We'll be looking to knock out some great routines this week in practice so we build even more confidence before Saturday's meet. We will be going against No. 2 Cal-Berkeley, No. 3 Stanford, No. 5 Minnesota, No. 6 Illinois, No. 14 Air Force Academy and the Japan College All-Star Team. We will be starting on high bar in the meet, which is the same rotation that we had at Windy City where we won, and it is also the same draw that we have for the Big Ten Championship (April 3-4) in Ann Arbor. We have been waiting for this competition since the beginning of the season and we are ready for this challenge. Going out to the West Coast is always something that has been difficult for us to deal with -- we've finished fourth the past three seasons. But this year we are going to change that. This year is a different year and we are ready to make a huge impact at the Pacific Coast Classic. We are going to win the meet this year and have a strong second half to our season.

After the Pacific Coast Classic, the entire team will be heading to Ensenada, Mexico, for a week of intense training. This will give us a great opportunity to train in a different atmosphere and adapt to different situations. But there will be some down time for us to relax and actually enjoy our spring break! Hopefully, we'll all enjoy ourselves and have a great week of training! GO BLUE!!