MGoBlogs: Men's Gymnastics, Vol. II, No. 2

Team Intrasquads Prepare Men's Gymnastics for Historic Season
TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 25, 2008

Second on the men's gymnastics team athlete blog lineup is Joe Catrambone (Deptford, N.J./Gloucester Catholic). As a senior this season, Catrambone brings a lot of depth to the squad, capable of competing in all six events. Last season, Catrambone competed on the high bar, parallel bars, still rings and floor exercise at the 2008 NCAA team finals, registering solid scores in each. He also won the high bar title at the 2008 Pacific Coast Classic with a mark of 15.350. Now Catrambone takes some time to discuss mini intrasquads as the team approaches the Maize and Blue meet (Saturday, Dec. 13).

It's been another productive week in the gym. The guys are showing some great, steady progress as we get closer and closer to the Maize and Blue Intrasquad and, more importantly, our season. From my perspective, this is one of the most difficult parts of our season because getting back into routine shape can be very tough. Most of the guys are doing half routines on their events. Half sets consist of 5-6 skills, and some of the guys are even doing full routines, which consists, of 10 skills.

The way that our coaching staff and team feels that we can best prepare for our season is by doing what we call mini intrasquads. Each day this past week, we did a different event. On Monday, all the guys who work floor had to do a half routine or full routine for the coaching staff. The coaching staff judged the routines to see where everyone stood. I was unable to be at practice that day but I heard that the guys showed some good routines. Sophomore Ben Baldus-Strauss won the floor intrasquad. Last year at the NCAA Championships, Ben tore a ligament and fractured his left ankle on vault and was unable to finish the meet. To see him back on the leg events this year is incredible and will help our team out tremendously.

Another refreshing aspect of floor intrasquad was freshman Syque Caesar. He attempted a full routine for the first time and unfortunately it didn't go as well as he was hoping. He had some problems on some of his tumbling skills but it was still great to see how far along he has come. Syque has great potential on a lot of events. He has shown steady progress this fall and has amazing talent. He will be one to watch in the upcoming year and for years to come here at Michigan. Not only does he show a great attitude but he has an amazing work ethic that makes most of the guys want to push themselves even more.

Tuesday was the pommel horse intrasquad. I thought that this was our best intrasquad. As a team, we are very deep on pommel horse. It is great to see some of the guys who redshirted last year, such as Devan Cote, Adam Hamers and Steve Crabtree, really improve a remarkable amount on this event. Ben won the pommel horse intrasquad as well. It was also nice to see fifth-year senior Paul Woodward perform a full pommel horse routine and continue to raise his difficulty every year on that event.

The ring intrasquad was on Wednesday. In the summer, many of the guys on the team stuck around to train and really focus on areas of weakness -- and you can never get enough ring strength. A couple of the guys who work rings really who really stood out to me were sophomore Chris Cameron and redshirt freshman Andrew Vance. Chris, Big Ten finalist on the pommel horse last year, has shown amazing improvement in this area. He has really been focusing on getting more strength skills and improving his positions on them each and every day. Sophomore Thomas Kelley has also been improving in this category and will likely have the strength that the team is looking for this year. He won the intrasquad and still has time to increase the difficulty in his routine. Andrew Vance (or, as we call him "Midge") is one of the best ring workers on our team. The level of difficulty that he has in his routine is incredible and will make a great push for lineup this year.

Vault is one of the higher scoring events and is one of my favorites to watch. Thursday was the day that the guys did the vault intrasquad. We have really been trying to increase our difficulty on this event quite a bit. Douglass Johnson, one of our freshmen, performed a very difficult handspring double front. This is one of the "6.6 vaults" that Kent mentioned last week as being Olympic-caliber. Douglass won the vault intrasquad and keeps improving the vault each week. Also performing this vault were seniors Jamie Thompson and Ralph Rosso and junior co-captain Dave Chan. All of these guys performed the vault very well but there is still plenty of room for us to improve even more. Andrew Vance performed a "Kasamatsu full" in the intrasquad which was done very well. He has only been landing this vault for two weeks, so to see him perform this under pressure was a great sign!

The final day of the week was the parallel bar intrasquad. Once again, one of the guys that did not see lineup action last year, Steve Crabtree, showed a good routine under pressure. He performed a Diamidov 1/2 and a huge double back to highlight his routine. (Click on the video to see Steve's routine.)

Ryan McCarthy, a senior, came in second place in the intrasquad with a unique and different routine. He has been focusing on his execution, and when season rolls around, he will clean up his routines to minimize the deductions. Chris Cameron had a well executed routine that showed the team and coaches that he could compete tomorrow. It was nice to see that a sophomore set the bar high. Chris won the intrasquad and there was still some room for him to even improve! (Click on the video to see Chris' routine.)

The high bar intrasquad will be held on Monday and will hopefully have even more hit routines than the other intrasquads. I am hoping that the guys step up on that event and I am certain that there will be some big routines from Ian Makowske, Ryan McCarthy, Mel Anton Santander, and Thomas Kelley, who was an All-American a year ago. Overall, I thought the intrasquads showed where we are right now and where we need to be come April for the end of our season. I think many of the guys showed great progress and skill level but we all know that there is plenty of more work that needs to be done if we are planning on winning the Big Ten Championships and NCAA Championships.

Since this year is my last year, I am going to make the most of it. I know the guys feel that this is the year that we really have a legit chance of contending for the title. We have been striving for this chance for awhile and everyone is putting their full effort and heart where it should be. It's great to see everyone really pushing each other and coming together as a whole to try and accomplish what most teams out there dream of. This will be the year that Michigan Men's Gymnastics will be led by captains Phil Goldberg and Dave Chan to a Big Ten championship and NCAA championship!!!

GO BLUE!!!!!