Gymnasts are trained to smile and cheer after every routine, whether good or bad. They hug each of their teammates and their coach after they step off the floor or from the apparatus. Maybe that’s why college gymnastics is such a positive-attitude sport, one in which team success is paramount to individual glory.
Maybe that also explains why coach Rhonda Faehn and the Florida gymnastics team have been able to carry one during this difficult season.
The No. 6 Gators head to Nashville Saturday to compete in the SEC Gymnastics Championships in the Sommet Center at 5 p.m. with a squad that resembles more of a M*A*S*H unit than a gymnastics team. They are coming off another tough loss at the hands of No. 2 Utah last week, falling 197.075-196.00, and just can’t seem to kick the injury bug.
“We really felt we did a very nice job,” Faehn said. “It was a challenge going in shorthanded without all of our athletes. We’re extremely limited without the bodies to put in there. It was rough.”
And things just keep getting rougher for the Gators.
At Utah, junior All-American Amanda Castillo, who was already hampered by ankle bursitis, was lost for the season after she tore her Achilles tendon while executing a tumbling pass on the floor exercise. Castillo was expected to anchor the team and be a major contributor in the postseason.
On Wednesday during the team’s final practice before traveling to Nashville, sophomore Alicia Goodwin was lost for up to a month with a torn PCL and sprained MCL in her left knee. Goodwin was set to fill in for Castillo on the floor before being getting hurt.
Those injuries, along with season-ending surgeries on freshmen Kailey Tissue (knee) and Nicole Ellis (hip) leave Faehn with only seven “healthy” athletes going into the toughest meet of the season.
In each of the individual events, each team is allowed to have six gymnasts perform and count five scores toward their final total, dropping the lowest score. Now it looks the Gators will use only five gymnasts in each rotation and count every score. That means there is zero margin for error.
The grim outlook has Faehn re-thinking her team’s situation.
“It’s going to be a challenge once again for us,” Faehn said. “Our goals have changed and we really can’t focus on anything that we can’t control. We can’t focus on and be thinking about winning a national championship. We want to win an SEC title. For us, we have to go out there and just focus on hitting our routines.”
With their lineup decimated by injury, the Gators still remain upbeat and optimistic about their chances.
“This is why we practice so hard in the preseason to prepare for anything,” said junior Courtney Gladys. “In the preseason my outlook wasn’t to compete on bars but now the team needs me. I think we all have different roles that we’re playing.”
While any coach would cringe of having nearly half of the team unavailable, Faehn seems surprisingly upbeat about going into a championship that will feature the best competition in the country. All seven of the SEC teams are ranked in the Top 25 nationally. Six of them, including the Gators, are ranked 11th or better.
“We’re staying positive and we know that everything happens for a reason,” Faehn said. “This is a challenge we’re not going to buckle to. We have nothing to lose. The mindset is for everybody to give it their all, 100 percent. We’re not focused in on placing or anything we can’t control.”
According to both Faehn and Gladys, the reason for such optimism is the chemistry that this team has developed off the floor. It’s a tightness that goes well beyond cheering for each other and giving hugs after routines.
Faehn noted Castillo as an example. After being injured at the Utah meet, she got treatment from the team’s training staff and then immediately came back on crutches to cheer on her teammates from the sidelines.
“They’re so close and they really needed that, really need one another,” Faehn said. “It’s so important and it helps our confidence knowing everybody is out there supporting one another. It’s the reason we’ve come so far, because of our team unity.”
While the odds are stacked against the dangerously thin team, there are still some very talented performers who could put up big scores, including All-American Melanie Sinclair and surprise upstart Maranda Smith.
Still, with senior Corey Hartung looking to only perform in two events, balance beam and uneven bars, it’s going to be a tough hill to climb for the Gators to make it to the top of the SEC podium.
The Florida Gators plan on giving it their all.