< Back | Home

Underclassmen Tasha Smith, Mandi Rodriguez, and Kera Bolen listen to head coach Tanya Chaplin during a meet earlier this season. Despite having no senior leadership, the team has thrived this year.

No seniors, no problem

Even with youthful lineup, head coach Tanya Chaplin has kept her program going strong with another successful season on national scale

By: Sami Redmond

Posted: 4/12/07

Most gymnasts are introduced to the sport between the time when they are 4 and 6 years old. By the time a gymnast reaches the collegiate level she typically has 14 years of gymnastics experience and has qualified two or three times for the Junior Olympic National Competition. Yet, she is still very inexperienced.

When analyzing the scores of Beaver gymnastics for the 2007 season and considering the team roster, it is shocking to discover one thing: they have no seniors.

The No. 8 Oregon State gymnastics team members are young, and aside from a few exceptions, competing at the college level posts challenges and pressures that differ from those experienced in club gymnastics.

"Club gymnastics is a completely different atmosphere," sophomore Tasha Smith said. "In club, it's all for yourself. When you go out there on the floor you are not thinking about what your team can get, you are thinking about what you can get. If you fall here, you feel like you want to cry because you are letting your team down."

The OSU team is made up of four freshmen, six sophomores and five juniors. Three of these gymnasts consistently compete in the all-around in sophomores Smith, Jami Lanz and freshman Mandi Rodriguez.

Lanz is currently nationally ranked eighth in the all-around, 13th on the beam, 16th on the floor and 23rd on the uneven bars. Rodriquez and Smith are ranked ninth and 14th on the vault, respectively. Their high rankings have earned them all a spot on the Pac-10 All Conference Women's Gymnastics team this season.

"It's exciting," Smith said. "I got it for vault last year and all-around this year. It was different, and I liked it."

It is typical for the senior gymnasts on a team to step up and take on leadership roles. On a team without senior gymnasts, however, the Beavers have learned to feed off one another's performances and compete as one unified team.

"When we compete, everyone has a role," sophomore D'Anna Piro said. "As far as leadership during the meet, we all take a role. And of course Jami and Yuki, being our team captains, will step up and keep us on track when we need to. But we all have a say and we all listen to what each other puts in."

Without a doubt, the Beavers' teamwork is paying off. OSU placed third this season at the Pac-10 Championships, falling to UCLA and Stanford. The team also qualified for the NCAA Regional competition for the second year in a row after a previous three-year run of missing the regional qualification by a matter of tenths.

"We will set the tone and tell them what our expectations are," coach Tanya Chaplin said. "They are very good at helping each other through assignments and supporting each other, but not coddling each other. That is a great thing to see."

Although the lack of senior experience on the team may have been a struggle at the beginning of the season, Oregon State has found a way around it. Every gymnast on the team feels an equal amount of pressure to perform at their best, but they also have the support of their teammates to back them up.

The Beavers' goal for the upcoming regional competition will be to place in the top two. This would ensure them a trip to their second straight NCAA national competition, taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah this year.

"I think we have a great chance," Rodriguez said. "We are a second seed team right now, so we just need to do our job and we should be fine."

Despite the mountains that the Beavers have had to scale while finding leadership and unification as a team, they acknowledge there is a perk with having such a young team. They are set to return all six routines on each event for the 2008 season as well as the addition of three incoming freshmen that competed at the Junior Olympic national level.

The OSU gymnasts have found success early in many of their collegiate careers and hope that they will continue to improve on the road to the 2007 NCAA Regionals and the national championships, as well as in seasons yet to come.