"From the Vault" is a column by Penn State women's gymnastics head coach Steve Shephard. Shephard is in his 16th season leading the Nittany Lion squad.
April 16, 2008 Brandi qualified as an individual in the all around, so we will have representation for our program at the NCAA. After feeling very down about not going with her team, Brandi has come around, and is focused on representing Penn State to the best of her ability.
April 1, 2008 This was the title of a column back during the depression on CBS radio, and now NPR does it on a weekly basis. I have heard it a few times, and really enjoyed the concept of random people expressing their personal beliefs, and philosophies. I liked it so much I wanted to write my own, so here it is. This I believe, First, I believe that the process is more important than the outcome. Even after you win the most important competition you can think of, your next immediate thought after relishing the victory, is what do I do next? You begin in your mind preparing for what lies ahead. Next season... Tomorrow... Next time... This is the reality of sport and of life. The journey goes on, the outcome is only temporary. You never arrive at your final destination. I believe in life-long learning, and always challenging yourself with something new that you may never have tried before. A new day brings a new challenge. I believe in the pursuit of excellence. You never achieve perfection as a human being. You can only strive for excellence on that journey through life. Those who are dedicated to excellence have a different mindset than those who are too focused on the outcome. By focusing on excellence instead of the perfect outcome, you free yourself to enjoy the challenge and embrace the uncertainty of competition. You allow yourself to perceive mistakes and setbacks as tools to learn from. By focusing on excellence you have no fear of failure, because excellence is a process, not an outcome. The motivation becomes a joyful pursuit to maximize individual potential. It is not dependent on any external measuring stick of success or winning, it is defined by your own individual growth. I believe in having a positive attitude. This means always trying to look for the best in people, and in situations. This doesn't mean having an unrealistic view of the world through rose colored glasses. Having a positive attitude means taking what life gives us and turning it to our advantage. Life doesn't always go the way we hope it would. People sometimes disappoint us, and they can be very deceitful, cruel and evil. Having a positive attitude about people allows us help them in a positive way in spite of their own shortcomings. I believe that people will behave the way you expect them to behave. If you expect them to be weak or negative, they will behave that way. And the reverse is true, that if you expect them to be strong and positive, over time they will become strong and positive. Sometimes life gives us tremendous adversity, hardship and pain. These hardships can crush even the strongest of individuals unless they are able to turn it to their advantage. There is purpose even in the worst case scenario. The key is to find a meaningful purpose as to why bad things happen and use that purpose to make us stronger. If you have a positive attitude as your basic nature, you can survive anything. I believe that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to those events. I choose to react in a positive way and I look for positive solutions to every situation, and I look for the best in people even when they may disappoint me. I consider it one of life's highest callings to help people reach their maximum potential by expecting them to reach that goal. I believe in the joy of ultimate effort. Some people call it hard work or a strong work ethic. I prefer to call it the joy of ultimate effort. I believe that there is dignity in applying yourself physically to a task, with your ultimate effort. Not a good effort but your ultimate effort. The payoff is tremendous when you know you have put everything you have into the task. There are no regrets once you know that you have given the ultimate effort. I remember the first Marathon I ran. I didn't win the race, but I felt such a tremendous feeling of personal satisfaction and joyful pride, because I gave it my ultimate effort, and when I finished, I cried tears of joy. I believe that athletic participation is a microcosm of real life. Success and secure adjustment as an athlete leads to success, and well adjustment as an adult in the real world. Of course, winning and the worldly definition of success is important, and we are judged based on how well we did in the won/ loss column. However, there is more to it than that. There are certain gifted individuals who are at the far end of the normal distribution of athletic ability. There is a certain genetic component to reaching the pinnacle of any sport. There is something to the old adage that "if you want to become a champion you must pick your parents wisely." There are a few very select individuals who have what it takes to reach the pinnacle of the sport they choose. This fact does not diminish what all those others who are not as "gifted" can get out of the athletic experience. Reaching your individual personal potential is the ultimate measuring stick that defines success. As my Dad used to say, "Not everyone can be a rocket scientist, or a millionaire, or NFL star, but whatever you choose to do with your life, do it to the best of your ability." That is my definition of success. As I tell my gymnasts, "Don't evaluate your performance based on the score you get, that score is really just one judge's opinion. Base your evaluation on this question ... "Did you do better than you normally do in practice, about the same, or was it worse?" There are many more things I believe, but these are the main ideas that make my job as a coach so meaningful to me.
February 20, 2008 I wanted to take this time to remind everyone who reads this how precious life is, and how quickly it can be taken away. Take the time today to hug your friends, kiss your Mom and Dad, and tell your teammates how much you care about them. Call your brother or sister and tell them you love them. Embrace life and all of the ups and downs associated with our day to day struggles. Keep the sport of gymnastics in its proper perspective. It is supposed to be fun, and enhance the quality of your life! It is supposed to teach you life lessons that you can use as you go through the trials and tribulations that we all face. I dedicated my gymnastics career to Gary's memory after he died in 1974. In his memory I hope you all have a great day and live life to the fullest as Gary did.
January 28, 2008 Right now, we are dealing with some injuries that have taken a toll on our ability to reach our scoring potential. None of these recent injuries are season-ending, but they have really put a strain on our team and have required our backups to really step into the forefront and deliver. Borkan is still recovering from surgery on her shoulder. She is starting to do beam routines and has made progress toward a full recovery. Rosie Smith had a scary crash on vault against Arkansas and has hurt her hand and her ankle as a result of that fall. Both Lindsey Montross and Teenie Beck are suffering from pulled groin muscles. They are doing everything they can to try to get back to full speed, but training has been a challenge. Melissa Klein hurt her foot in the Michigan meet and still has not trained since then. We are hoping to get her back soon, but we don't want to push too hard and risk prolonging her injury. Danielle Hover is nursing a similar problem with her foot, but it is not as serious as Mel's injury and we hope she bounces right back. Casey Rohrbaugh has a pulled an abdominal muscle and that has slowed her down in her training. We are planning on changing her floor passes to try to boost her score. The way we have her tumbling arranged, it is just not working so we are exploring other options that may help her maximize her scoring ability. Alex hurt her ankle in the Michigan meet and is still not fully recovered. She was a real trooper in Arkansas when we needed her on floor and vault. She had not trained the week before and she came through well. She is still struggling with her two salto pass and only scored a 9.2 because she left it out during her floor routine. She has the ability to be a top scorer on floor for us and we are going to get her up to speed this week. Brandi is nursing a hurt knee but we are hopeful that she will continue to be able to train and that it will go away soon. I know we are not the only team dealing with injuries and that it is a huge part of a team's success at this level. No excuses, just the facts. We will continue to fight the good fight and we will persevere. It is just really frustrating to know how much better we can be when we get healthy. The Arkansas meet was a battle!! We had to fight for every tenth during that meet and even though we lost, the team grew as a result of the experience. This adversity is making us stronger and we will be better from it. We have WVU at home this weekend and we will do everything in our power to be ready for them.
January 13, 2008 We started on floor where we were very good for our first meet. We competed two full ins, (one piked, one tucked), and a double layout, for first passes. Casey started with a 2.5 twist, punch front, and had no landing deductions until her last pass. She ended with a 3.0 full twist; that was her only deduction on landing. When she straightens it out she is capable of 9.9. Brandi was the highlight of the floor line up with a 9.9 score and a performance to match that score!! Alex was called on as the back up on floor. She did a great job. That girl demands your attention when she is doing her floor routine!! Mel and T did great also. Mel said afterward that was the first time competing her piked full in that she felt ready to go. It was huge and she had a real nice landing as well. We missed Rosie on floor since she has been tearin' it up in the gym. Aslynn had a great routine also and we ended up scoring a 49.025 which we were happy with. We took that momentum into vault. Travis is the go-to coach for vault and the girls didn't disappoint him. Mel went in as our back up, and competed a watered down Y layout since her half is not quite ready, and we didn't think we needed to take any chances. She did great. The rest of the vault line up performed very well for our first time on the hard surface. Rosie handled her injury with courage and deflected the attention off of her and back onto the team. Brandi competed her Y 1.5 and landed it fairly well. She did great for her first time on the hard and choosing not to water down but go for it!! Our main deductions on vault must have been dynamics and form because our landings were pretty decent with two stuck landings. Next we rotated to bars. Danielle Hover had to go in for Rosie. She handled it well considering that she didn't make anything in warm ups and was very nervous. We took out her sole circle catch high since we wanted to keep it simple for her so she could hit. I was very proud of how she handled herself other than her warm up AAAAGGGHHH! Alex won bars with a pretty routine with a sweet pak salto and a giant 1.5 pirouette to immediate Tkatchev. It rocked!!! T had a bit of trouble with her dismount and stumbled forward. She didn't do her full out dismount since it is not consistent enough in practice. She is capable of putting up a big score here and as she develops she will do it. Brandi changed her routine around from last year and is doing a giant full to a Geinger and then a giant half to a shoot hand. It is much simpler for her and more bonus. Now that's great coaching. Thanks to Travis for thinking of that change. Casey did a good routine for herself. She will upgrade her dismount to include a giant full before her double. She was clean and stuck her dismount so that was fun to have her in there after not making the line up all last year. Montross did a good job. She did blind pike yeager to a pak salto, half pirouette to a sole circle catch high, then ended with a blind to a double front dismount. It was very nice and she will be able to stick her landing. Next was beam. Jess has done a great job getting these athletes to believe in themselves. They were ready, and Heather Mac had to go in for Rosie. She hit with a solid performance. She is capable of doing even better and she is motivated to do it. Both Brandi and Alex fell. Casey had a major wobble and our best performances came form our freshmen! Way to go Froshies!! All In all it was a positive start to our much anticipated beginning. We have work to do, and we need to raise our standards in practice. The kids are motivated, and we can't wait for Michigan this weekend. Hope to see you in Rec Hall. For those of you who have the Big Ten Network you will be able to watch the meet on a tape delay basis. The date of that broadcast will be on our web site. When we are not on TV we will be webcasting our home meets over the web site.
October 22, 2007 The team continues to progress well into the preseason. We are currently doing bar routines without dismounts, and working separate skills that need additional work. We are getting more consistent and able to get through routines. Casey Rohrbaugh is learning a double front dismount and is progressing well. She is ready to take it onto a harder surface. She has also re-learned a Shushonova on Bars (full twisting reverse Hecht) (AKA "Burrito roll"). The last person we had competing that skill was Jada Hiltebrand back in 1992. Casey is doing it really well and will help out our bar line-up. Dani is learning a double layout dismount and is starting to get it. Heather Mac is looking good and is cleaning up her form. I have been making her do her blind changes with her big toes tied together with pre-wrap. It is helping her keep her legs together. On beam the girls are doing full routines without dismounts yet. They are looking good and continue to increase their consistency. Mel is working a flic lay lay series and is gaining more confidence on it. They are doing lots of numbers and will be strong on beam. Vaulting is going well also. We have Brandi doing Y1.5 onto the resi with an 8in mat over it. Rosie continues to do her Y 1/2 , Casey is doing a Y1/1. Alex is doing a Y1/1 and Aslynn is doing her Y1/2, Teenie is doing a Y1/1 and working her Y1.5 into the pit with mats. Mel is trying to learn a pike front ½ , and Dani is trying to learn a pike. Dani is very powerful but struggles with piking early. If we can teach her to finish her handspring before she starts to flip it will be great. We had a setback two weeks ago when Lindsey Montross landed wrong on a Y1/1 and hurt her knee. She sprained her medial collateral ligament and is out of action for a few weeks. Floor is going well also. The girls are doing routines with layouts for their first two passes and then doing their last pass. They are also working their other passes in the pit and some of them on the competitive surface. Brandi will open with either a double layout or a pike full in. Aslynn will do either a double layout or a tuck full in. Teenie will do a double Arabian, a 1.5 punch front full and a double pike last pass. Casey is trying to switch up the order of her passes with a triple full second pass and end with a double pike. She will continue to do her 2.5 punch front first pass. Mel will open with a pike full in and double pike last pass. Rosie is recovering well from Mono that she had during the summer. Her strength is getting better and she is increasing her fitness so she can train harder. Alex is working hard working on her technique for her double backs. Heather Mac is getting her skills back after not tumbling all summer due to a high ankle sprain. Endurance is looking good as they continue to train hard. Lindsay Borkan had surgery on her shoulder to repair a torn labrum. She is progressing well and conditioning very hard in the gym everyday. We will have our first inter-squad on Nov. 10th in the practice gym with as much difficulty as we can perform safely.
September 21, 2007 Our schedule is M, W, F strength at 7:00am. M, & F are in the weight room, and Wed. in the gymnastics gym. Tuesday afternoon we do a plyo circuit, and Thursday at 7:00am we do a spinning class. I do the spinning class with them, and I tell the instructor that her goal is to make it so hard that I can't keep up. So I have been working very hard trying to keep up with these youngsters! I enjoy the hard work, and sweating with my team. I tell them that they better not get outworked by a 51 year old!!! Voluntary workouts have been good in the gym, stressing major elements, and identifying what will be in their routines. We have also had a number of goal setting meetings, and have talked a lot about team building, and team unity. The team is bonding together, and they are having fun working out and getting to know each other. We are all looking forward to the Football game this weekend against Michigan. We better bring our "A" game to the Wolverines. It is such a great rivalry between our two schools!! Not just football but gymnastics as well!! They beat us last year at the Big Ten championships by .1 and the team is going to do everything in their power not to let that happen again. It is a huge motivating force for our team. We saw many of our Alums on the Notre Dame weekend and it was great to see all of them again. Amie O is working in NYC as a media buyer, and living with Gena Shingle. Gena is auditioning for acting parts and is working with the Hoboken Theater. They have an apartment in Hoboken NJ. Michelle Ilg is working in NJ. Corissa Pirkl is working for Target in their marketing department, and living at home on Long Island. Lisa Clark is working as a para legal and trying to save enough for her own place. Steph Sullivan is going to Hershey Medical School, and is very busy preparing to save the world from disease and poverty. Meredith Hoover is doing Teach for America in Philly, and will get her masters after she is done with the program. Jen Orlando is still here in State College working for the "Spikes" minor league baseball team as a marketing director. Ashley Mehrer is living in Chattanooga Tenn. And wasn't able to make it back yet. She is working as an actuary for Unum Insurance. We are so proud of how well they are all doing!!
Read below for posts from previous seasons! April 6, 2007 We had a major blow at the Big Ten¡¯s when we lost Amie Olaes to a torn ACL. She landed her bar dismount perfectly and her knee just couldn¡¯t take the impact. She still stuck the landing and scored a 9.85. What a hero!! Right now our focus is to keep the team sharp and not lose focus on our goals. I¡¯m giving them the weekend off for Easter to give them an opportunity to spend some family time and a much needed rest. All is well in Happy Valley and we can¡¯t wait to have a great meet in Denver. March 21, 2007 The meet went very well for us in spite of the fact that we sounded like we should be in a TB ward with all the illness that the team was suffering from. We started on floor and were a bit off with our landings. We still managed to score well, but we had lots of room for improvement. Vault went well, but our warm up vaults were better than our competitive vaults. Both Rosie and Aslynn stuck in warm ups. I joked with the judge that I wanted to count their warm up vaults instead! Rosie¡¯s vault in warm ups could¡¯ve gotten a 10.0 It was awesome. Brandi successfully competed her Y1.5 again! When she finally sticks it, it will score big!! Bars went very well for us, but we still didn¡¯t stick every dismount, but our execution is getting better. Katie Perret was stellar! She set a new school record for us with a 9.975. I joked with the judge ¡°can¡¯t you find it in your heart to give her that .05 back?¡± The one judge flashed a 10.0 then changed it to a 9.95. It was a great routine. I don¡¯t think the judges fully appreciate how hard it is to do the ¡°Perret¡± aka a Khorkina from an Invert. Katie is really starting to get some flight on it now. We ended on beam and Arizona was right on our heels. The score was 147.575 to 147.225 going into the final rotation. We knew we had to be good on beam and we were!! Everyone stayed on and not only that but there were very few bobbles or lack of sureness. The final score was 196.825 to 196.65. Both teams had good meets!! This weekend we end our regular season at home, then we host the Big Ten Championship on March 31st. See you in Rec Hall!!! March 6, 2007 Back to the meet against Maryland. Lindsay ended up with a 9.6, which put pressure on the other kids to really hit. Both Alex, and Montross had mistakes. Montross dragged her legs on her glide after her Pak salto, and Alex missed a cast hand pirouette. Everyone else hit but we need to stick dismounts and get those all important handstands!! We performed well on vault with Allie Southard competing in the line up for the first time. She scored a 9.825 with a nice vault. I replaced Katie P. since she had a rough warm up and seemed to be out of sorts with her vault. It¡¯s nice to have the kind of depth that allows us to have someone else step in with a nice score. Floor went very well except Allie Southard¡¯s double Arabian. She landed in a deep squat which cost her. Fortunately we didn¡¯t have to count her score. Brandi and Rosie both handled doing double back last pass very well. On beam we ran into some trouble as well. Borkan started us off with a hit set. Casey followed with a nice solid routine, for a respectable 9.85. Allie Southard fell on her series, followed by Katie P who hit a nice routine for a 9.9. Next up was Brandi who fell on her series. She still scored a 9.4, but we had to count it. Steph ended the rotation with a very solid 9.9. Again the mistakes cost us being able to max out our score which is very frustrating. I gave the girls the rest of the weekend off to try to get caught up with their schoolwork since we will be missing Thursday, and Friday when we travel to LSU. We will train M, T, W, and this week focusing on the mental side of things to get the team to hit when it counts!! The picture is of Alayna, a young fan who came to see us and she wanted her picture taken with the team. Alayna is a budding gymnast and I think her mom wanted to help motivate her to continue in the sport. She was very cute and loved having her photo taken with the team.
 Alayna, a young fan, with the team. Feb. 20, 2007 Feb. 5, 2007 The past week in practice was really good. The team was ready, and fired up to redeem ourselves after having sub-par meets at home. I guess the change of venue was good for the team. We competed in Olympic order, and our vaulters did OK. Alex was our only stuck vault, and we had one fall. Brandi warmed up her 1.5 Y but didn¡¯t make any, so we decided to just do a full. She blasted a great one and could¡¯ve easily made her 1.5. On bars we were fairly solid, with a few minor flaws. Our anchor Katie Perret missed her Higgins on her first try and had to jump down. She started over and made everything the second try but had to settle for a 9.2. Our top bars scorer was Alex Brockway. She did a near perfect set and stuck her dismount for a 9.85. I had to have a chat with the meet ref after that to make sure the scores didn¡¯t escalate. I told her that if there were any 9.9s they better be superior to Alex¡¯s routine. Alex ended up winning bars and the scores stayed in line. Beam was solid for us. We finally scored a 49+ and didn¡¯t count a fall. Both Alex and Katie P were a bit off. They had a couple of big bobbles and both of them scored 9.6 and 9.675 respectively. Steph Sullivan came up with a great routine as our anchor. She scored a 9.925. Brandi P. was solid for a 9.85, and both Borkan and Casey R. scored 9.8 and 9.825 respectively. Floor proved to be a bit of an issue again. Ash started us off with a solid set although she was a bit of axis on her jumps at one point and had a bit of a stumble. She scored 9.775. Borkan did a nice routine and scored a 9.825. She has been such a trooper working through her pain. Alex tried her new tumbling for the first time this meet. We took out her 2.5 twist for her second pass since it was a knee injury waiting to happen. She never made it all the way around on the twist and tweaked her knee once already on that pass. We are working on a double front first pass but it is not ready yet so we are going with a double tuck first pass and a double pike second pass. She had a bit of trouble landing her second pass and took a big stumble forward. She still managed to get a 9.6. Rosie Smith did great on her first two passes, but then bailed out on her front full front layout combo, and watered it down to a tuck front. She still scored a 9.85 and was our top scorer on floor. She has improved her presentation a great deal, but we still need more smiling from her!! Casey Rohrbaugh fell on her 2.5 punch front and only got a 9.25. Brandi went OOB on her double pike second pass and only scored a 9.7. All in all it was a better performance, but we are still not reaching our potential. As I told the team after the meet, ¡°Well, I guess we¡¯re not peaking yet." This may be a good thing to still have some work to do, but I really want to see improvement on floor and vault. I also want to challenge this group to be more mentally, and physically tough. We need to see some fire from this group!!!! They are talented, but they need to get tough!! Jan. 30, 2007 Jan. 8, 2007 The team performed well, for our first meet. There were some mistakes by the freshmen, but overall they did a nice job. We started on a bye which was nice since we didn't have to "warm up" the judges. Our first event was Floor. We started out with Casey Rohrbaugh. She was a bit sloppy but stayed on her feet for a 9.575. Her last pass is a triple full and she was a bit shy of completing the twist and took a step forward. Next up was Alex Brockway. She mounted with a double pike and had a nice landing. Her second pass is a 2 1/2 twist. She is a bit sloppy on it, but made the landing OK. She ends with a frt. Full punch pike and made that nicely. She scored a 9.725. Next was Brandi Personett. She mounted with a nice piked full in, and nailed her double pike second pass. She ended with a frt. full, frt layout, and it was performed well. She earned a 9.825. Next was Lindsey Montross. We had watered her down to start with a double pike instead of her double Arabian. She did it well, and made her 2&1/2 punch front for her second pass, but fell and went out of bounds on her double tuck last pass. She got a 9.0. Next was Corissa Pirkl. She was doing great until she "boinked" her landing on her second pass, a double pike, and stepped out of bounds. That mistake cost us since she only scored a 9.525. Last up was Ashley Mehrer. She hit her routine and scored a 9.65. I thought she was underscored a bit, but what can you do? Our next event was Vault. We started with Ashley Mehrer who competed her pike front half for the first time. She scored a 9.5. Her chest was a bit low on her landing but I was just happy she stayed on her feet for the first time competing that vault. Next was Casey Rohrbaugh. She performed a layout Y 1/1. It was pretty good considering this was her first time on the hard competitive surface, and she had a terrible warm up only making one to her feet. She managed a 9.675. Alex was next with a Y 1/1 layout. It was a nice vault with a small hop on her landing. She had good amplitude and decent body position in the air. She scored a 9.725. Rosie Smith was our top score on vault with a 9.775. She did a layout Y 1/1 and had good amplitude, but her main deduction was probably her leg form at the end of her twist. Corissa Pirkl took a small step on her layout Y, and scored a 9.75. Brandi Personett performed a layout Y1/1. She had landed hard in warm ups, so her landing in the meet was pretty painful, and she took a big step to the side. She scored a 9.65. We can do much better on vault and we will now that we have our first meet under our belts. It is always a shocker to land vaults in a meet since we don't train on the hard surface during preseason. Next we went to bars. We hit 6/6 on bars but still had some little mistakes. It was great to see Amie Olaes hit a routine on bars for the first time competing in a long time. She scored a 9.8. She has made a great comeback from a great deal of adversity so far in her Penn State career. Borkan started us off with a solid routine for a 9.725. It was nice to see her do so well! Brandi Personett hit her routine for a 9.8. She has been working very hard to make the line up and she was a solid performer for the team. Lindsey Montross did well. The only problem was her Pak salto was a bit far from the low bar, and she hit her heels on her glide but fought hard to finish. She scored a 9.775. Alex was cruising along until the last giant full going into her dismount when she missed her hand a bit a broke form with her legs. She still salvaged a 9.8 out of it and can do even better next time. Our anchor was Corissa Pirkl. She did a great job nailing everything and scoring a 9.875!! We had to finish the meet on beam. First up was Corissa Pirkl. She performed a flawless routine, scoring a 9.725. I thought that score was a bit low for her, but I think they hit her on amplitude. She had no wobbles and looked great up there. Next to compete was Ashley Mehrer. She was a bit tentative and had a few unsure skills, but she stayed on and went 9.65. Next up was Brandi P. She did a great job, scoring 9.8. Not bad for her first college meet! Casey Rohrbaugh went next, and fell on her kick over front. Now it was up to Borkan, and Steph to save the day. So far we weren't counting a fall and the pressure was on!! Borkan hit very well and ended up with a 9.75. Now it was up to Steph to be a leader and be a hitter. She was doing great until she stumbled a bit on her leap pass. She made her series and her front aerial very well but the bobble cost her. She scored a 9.725. All in all it was a good meet. We have lots of room for improvement especially on vault and floor. We will work hard this week to gain more confidence and correct the mistakes. We will also have Katie Perret back in the line up so we are hoping that will be a help. We have Arkansas at home this Saturday night. I hope to see a lot of fans come out to support the team. Go Lions!!!! Nov. 27, 2006 The team performed very well during the serious part of the actual gymnastics. We divided the team into two squads and did full routines with some modifications on floor and vault landing on soft surfaces, but other than that they did full routines. Jess and I "judged" the girls and our top performers were as follows: Vault: Bars: Beam: Floor: All in all they performed well. We hit 36/44 routines, and are making good progress toward being ready for our first meet. We still have some work to do with our tumbling to get onto the hard surface, and that will be one of our major goals over the next four weeks of practice. We are keeping the girls here until Dec. 21st. Then we return for practice Dec. 27th. This next phase of practice is a critical phase and we will try to be smart in what we expect from the girls as they finish the semester. Right now we feel very good about the future of this team!! Nov. 1, 2006 Vault: Ashley Mehrer, Piked front, and piked front 180 Lindsay Borkan, Layout Y 180 Alexandra Brockway, Layout Y 360 Allie Southard, Layout Y 180 Lindsey Montross, Layout Y 360 Katie Perret, Layout Y 360 Brandi Personett, Layout Y 360, Layout Y 540 Casey Rohrbaugh, Layout Y 360 Aslynn Satterfield, Layout Y 180, Layout Y 540 Rosie Smith, Layout Y 180, Layout Y 360, Layout Y 540 Bars: Lindsay Borkan, Half pirouette Shoot half handstand, Lohman to high bar. Inside Geinger, kip cast, giant, 360 double tuck Alex Brockway, Giant 540 to Tkatchev, Pak salto, half pirouette on low bar, Giant 360 double pike. Lindsey Montross, Stalder 180 to Jaeger, Pak slato, half pirouette, sole circle shoot to high bar, blind , healy double front Amie Olaes, Straddle over mount, uprise, Takatchev, straddle back. Sole circle shoot to high bar, Giant 360 two giants double lay. Katie Perret, Straddle over mount, Higgins Invert to the¡ëPerret¡ë ( Khorkina from El grip) Starddle back, sole circle shoot to high bar, Two giants, double lay. Brandi Personett, Giant 540 to shoot half handstand, sole circle shoot to high bar, Giant 360, Geinger, Two giants double lay Casey Rohrbaugh, Blind to piked Jaeger, kip cast, giant to shoot half handstand, sole circle shoot to high bar. Two giants, 360 double tuck. Allie Southard, Giant 360 Tkatchev, Straddle back, kip cast giant, double Arabian dismount Stephanie Sullivan, Kip cast 180 pirouette on high bar, Giant 360 to Tkatchev, straddle back, Uprise giant 180, layout front 540 dismount Rosie Smith, Toe shoot handstand on low bar to Shaposhnikova, kip cast, Tkatchev,kip cast to shoot half, kip cast, giant 360, double tuck. Beam: Corissa Pirkl: jump to straddle handstand mount; flip-flop to layout step out; straddle jump to straddle jump to tuck; jump 1/1; switch leap to back tuck; full turn; wolf jump 1/1; cartwheel gainer layout 1/1 to side dismount Katie Perret: jump ? turn to shoulder stand; front aerial to wolf jump; flip-flop to layout step out; straddle jump to straddle jump to beat jump; rear stag ring jump; full turn; round-off double full dismount Ashley Mehrer: front tuck to wolf jump mount; flip-flop layout step out; switch leap to flip-flop swing down; kick-over front to beat jump; switch leap to beat jump; full turn; gainer layout 1/1 to side dismount Lindsay Borkan: jump to sit mount; round-off to 2 foot layout; straddle jump to straddle jump to tuck jump 1 1/4; front tuck to beat jump or front tuck w/1/2 turn; full turnl round-off 1 ? or round-off double tuck dismount Brandi Personett: jump turning split to sit mount; gainer layout; flip-flop to flip-flop 1 arm to layout step out; full turn; switch leap to popa; flip-flop 1 ? dismount Casey Rohrbaugh: straddle over mount; flip-flop 2 foot to layout step out; full turn; switch leap to straddle jump to beat jump; kick over front to wolf jump; round-off double full or round-off double back dismount Alex Brockway: jump on mount; flip-flop to layout step out; standing front tuck to wolf jump; split jump 1/1; switch leap to tuck jump 1/1; front aerial to beat jump; round-off double full dismount Rosie Smith: straddle sit mount; flip-flop to layout step out; front tuck to wolf jump; switch leap to pike jump; full turn; tuck jump to wolf jump 1/1; front handspring to front layout dismount Allie Southard: handstand to roll mount; flip-flop to layout step out to layout step out; switch leap to tuck jump 1/1; split jump 1/1; full turn; round-off double full dismount Lindsey Montross: straddle over mount; flip-flop to layout step out; switch leap to wolf jump 1/1; front tuck to beat jump; switch leap to straddle jump; gainer layout 1/1 to side dismount Floor: Corissa Pirkl: Double Arabian, whip double tuck, whip half front double Lindsay Borkan: Whip double layout, whip half rudi, Double pike Ashley Mehrer: Double layout, Front layout , front full, front layout, Brani immediate back layout 540 Alex Brockway: Double pike, layout 900, front full front layout Lindsey Montross: Double Arabian, Layout 900 punch front, Double tuck Katie Perret: Front 720, Layout 1260, back 900 Amie Olaes: Double pike, whip half front rudi, double tuck Casey Rohrbaugh: Tuck full in, Rudi immediate layout, Back layout 1260 Aslynn Satterfield: Double layout, Rudi immediate layout, Full in Allie Southard: Double Arabian, Back layout 900, Front full front layout Steph Sullivan: Double pike, Front layout front full, Double full Rosie Smith: Double pike, Front handspring double tuck, Front full front layout Oct. 16, 2006 We had a nice time tailgating before the football game. Jess and I put together a nice spread for everyone. My wife Debbie made some great chili and everyone got plenty to eat. All in all it was a great weekend. It is so nice to see the former team members all doing so well! The current team is also doing well. My next report will be a breakdown of what all the girls are working on. With Penn State Pride,
 Sept. 25, 2006 The girls have been conditioning hard and doing drills and skills in the gym up to this point. We have been doing strength Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and doing some form of cardio on Tuesday and Thursday. It has been challenging but so far everyone is fired up to push each other. We have posted some new photos in our Gallery, and we now have last year's highlight video on our home page. Stay tuned for more updates! With "Penn State Pride," ? Click here to read the 2005-2006 "From The Vault" with Steve Shephard!! ? Click here to read the 2004-2005 "From The Vault" with Steve Shephard!!
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