Gymnastics placed second at the 2010 East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) Championships Saturday in Durham, N.H. State competed against eight area colleges and lost the title by three tenths of a point to UNC-Chapel Hill.
“It was really exciting,” senior Taylor Seaman said. “We knew we had a really good chance of winning and there was going to be really good competition. The meet was close.”
After the first two events, the uneven parallel bars and the balance beam, the Wolfpack sat in fifth with two events remaining. After the third event, the floor exercise, State rallied to take third-place and climbed into second after vault.
“Starting on bars and beam makes it tough because those are two of the tougher events,” sophomore Brooke Barr said. “After those we had floor and vault which are two of our best events. We just got the fire in our bellies because we didn’t get the score we deserved in beam, so we wanted to prove we deserved a higher scored and we did.”
According to head coach Mark Stevenson, the team’s less-than-perfect beam routine contributed to the Wolfpack second-place finish.
“We didn’t do great on beam. We had some balance errors in the routines without taking falls and that really cost us the meet,” Stevenson said. “But we had season highs on bars, floors and vaulting.”
Seaman, one of the most proficient gymnasts in school history, earned four EAGL honors. These included the first-team All-EAGL on floor and all-around as well as All-EAGL on bars with a score of 9.85 to lead the conference.
“Taylor was dead on with bars, vault and floor,” Stevenson said. “She had a pretty good break on beam, ended up with a 9.65 which was less-than-normal for her. She did a great job, won the all-around, won vaulting, and won floor all in the same meet, which is the first time that’s ever happened with any athlete. She has just gotten stronger and stronger as the year has gone one. She’s just a tremendous athlete.”
Sophomore Brooke Barr, who earned EAGL specialist of the week for the third time this season March 22, was another Wolfpack standout at the championships. Barr wound up tying Seaman on the floor exercise with a score of 9.925.
“Brooke probably had her best routine of the year,” Stevenson said. “She did a beautiful double layout on floor and had flawless landings.”
After her top performances, Barr received first-team All-EAGL on vault, and second-team All-EAGL on floor and all-around honors. According to Barr, she was extremely anxious at the meet.
“I had a rough day at practice the day before so I was extra nervous for the meet,” Barr said. “Overall it went pretty well. I ended up tying with Taylor on floor so that was really cool. I was excited about that.”
