Jan. 9, 2006
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This Week
The University of Iowa women’s gymnastics team will compete at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon Friday. Competition will take place at Gill Coliseum. Also competing will be Florida and Brigham Young.
Season Preview
The Hawkeyes begin their season as the 35th ranked team in the country. Iowa is coming off a sixth place finish at the 2005 Big Ten Championships and a sixth place NCAA regional finish. In addition, the Hawkeyes produced one second team all-Big Ten competitor, Liz Grajewski.
Scouting the Hawkeyes
Iowa returns 10 letterwinners from last year when it finished with an 8-14 overall record and a sixth-place finish at the BigTen Championships. Iowa adds three new members to the team for the 2006 season. Brandi Loffer, from Corona, CA, Kara Pinjuv, from Reno, NV, and Jennifer Simbhudas, from Markham, Ontario.
Head Coach Larissa Libby
Iowa Head Coach Larissa Libby begins her second season as head coach for the Hawkeyes. In her first year, Libby recorded an 8-14 record in 2005. Before becoming head coach, Libby was Iowa’s associate head coach for one year and an assistant coach for three seasons. While associate head coach, Libby led the GymHawks to a school record 49.425 beam performance in 2004. In addition, in 2004 the GymHawks recorded a 49.0 or higher seven times on beam under Libby’s guidance.
Quoting Head Coach Larissa Libby
“We are very excited to get our season started. The team has worked extremely hard during the pre-season to prepare for this moment and are anxious to get going. Our focus for this competition will be on consistency of performance throughout each of our line-ups. With our new code changes we are attempting to concentrate less on score and more on hitting routines. We will rely heavily on the experience and leadership of our seniors to guide the team through the season opener.”
Next Competition
The Hawkeyes will travel to Baton Rouge, LA on January 20th to compete at LSU. Competition will begin at 7p.m.