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March 23, 2007

Get behind the scenes of Illinois Gymnastics with Illini Ink - the weekly women's gymnastics journal. This week, sophomore Kim Kruk talks about the senior/alumni meet last week and looks forward to the championship season.

Hey Illini Fans!!

This past weekend was Senior Meet for Danye, Mel, and Pom. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday that I came to campus, and they took us all under their wings. They are amazing leaders, and when it comes time to finally say goodbye, it's going to be hard. They have meant a lot to every single girl on our team, and I don't think there is anything that can take away what they have meant to this program. That being said, going into this meet we wanted to give our seniors the best meet we could for their last home meet, and I think we did it.

We started out with a school record breaking 49.125 vault score. Michelle started us off with a great vault, and it just got better from there. Marijka and Suki both stuck amazing vaults. They tied for first place on the event. That got us really pumped up to go on bars. Bars went pretty good. We had a small mistake, but the rest of the team was able to pick it up, and cover for it. Pom finished up the line up with a great routine, and won the event. Sarah and I both tied for second. Next, we went to beam. Beam was not as great as it has been in the past couple of meets, we had some minor mistakes, but we still had really great routines by Michelle and Pom. After beam we wasted no time in picking up our momentum. Marijka, Lindsey, and Krystal started us off with three solid routines that paved the way for us to score our highest floor score of the season. All in all, I think it was a really good meet, but I know that we can all find things we can improve on to make these last meets our best of the season!

A ton of alumni were at the meet, because it was alumni meet along with senior meet. After the meet they walked out on to the floor, and then we took pictures. It was so nice to see so many different generations of Illini gymnasts still coming out to cheer us on. After that the seniors walked out with their parents, and the coaches presented them with flowers and plaques. After the meet all of the team, family, coaches, and alumni headed to the Senior Meet banquet where we had dinner and the coaches and seniors got a chance to say a few things about their four years here at Illinois. It was hard not to get a little emotional knowing that in a couple of months a big part of this team is going missing. They've have had an amazing four years here, and I hope that in these last meets we can send them off with all that they deserve. So. back into the gym to work hard and get ready for CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON!!!

GO ILLINI!!
Kim