Big Ten Champions!
4/9/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
WEDNESDAY, APRIL, 2009
Senior Ryan McCarthy (Zionsville, Ind./Zionsville Community) takes some time to reflect on his team's recent victory at the Big Ten Championship in Crisler Arena this past weekend (April 3-4). In an unanticipated turn of events, Michigan captured its first Big Ten title since 2000. McCarthy discusses the team's undulating emotions as it went from being named the second-place team to co-champions with Illinois.
The events of this past weekend will not soon be forgotten by anyone on our team. "Excitement, anxiety, hopelessness, disbelief, and exhilaration" is the way to describe the emotional rollercoaster that was this past weekend. Let me explain
April 3-4 was the Big Ten Championships hosted here at Michigan in Crisler Arena. We have had our sights set on this meet all season long and have been working extremely hard to prepare for the postseason. Going into the meet, we were confident and excited because we had a great shot at winning and the home crowd advantage.
The start of the meet couldn't go any better; we were on fire, hitting set after set. Our third event was pommel horse and, if you don't know, pommel horse can make or break a meet. It requires extreme precision because even small missteps can lead to disaster. The amount of pressure to hit one's routine on the horse is overwhelming. We absolutely nailed our routines even under the incredible pressure (props to the pommel horse lineup: Ben Baldus-Strauss, Chris Cameron, David Chan, Adam Hamers, Mel Anton Santander and Paul Woodward). It was at this time that we started to believe that we were going to win. A sense of excitement surrounded us as we moved on to our fourth and fifth events.
The last event standing between us and a Big Ten title was parallel bars; we went into this event with a healthy lead above Illinois, who was going to rings. It is important to note that rings is typically a higher-scoring event than parallel bars, so we were expecting the scoring gap to narrow, but no one would predict the whirlwind of events to follow.
Parallel bars were a disaster. The momentum that we had been building all competition was gone in a heartbeat. We started off the event with two missed sets (six guys compete and four scores count toward the team-score total), which meant that the last four guys had come through. We managed to achieve three decent scores and we needed one more -- 14.450 to be exact. Illinois was done, and that was the score that Chris Cameron had to beat in order for us to win. Chris is our best parallel bar worker, so we were confident that he could get the job done, but we were still sweating bullets with anxiety beyond belief. Chris was shaky, not a perfect routine, but we were thinking that it should be enough to squeak by. As we waited for the score to be posted we were literally nauseous with anticipation. Was it going to be good enough
No, the score was posted. 13.950. We lost. Over. Done.
The trophy was given to Illinois to top off the Big Ten Network's live broadcast. Interviews were already being conducted and, in the background, fans were cheering "I-L-L," "I-N-I." It was sick, gut wrenching, and the worst feeling. After all our hard work, to watch our lead vanish and the title slip between our fingers in the last seconds. It was like some inspirational sports movie where there is a buzzer shot for the win and, of course, it always goes in and everyone is cheering and happy and hats go flying etc., you get the image. But in our version, there was a record scratch instead, and we lost. No one was cheering, no hats were flying.
Meanwhile, the head meet judge was conferencing with the parallel bars judges over a potential scoring error made during Chris's routine. Unaware of the conference, we grouped up backstage and prepared for the awards ceremony. As we were lined up preparing to march out we observed a group of Michigan fan's on the opposite side of the arena stand up and start going crazy cheering. At nearly the same time, Chris, who was coming back from an interview, came sprinting towards screaming "I think we did it guys!" The confusion set in; we tried to stay calm and avoid any false hope, but the same question was on everyone's mind, "Could we have actually won"
During the march out for awards, our eyes were met with the results posted on the JumboTron: Illinois -- 357.100; Michigan -- 357.100. More confusion ensued. Was it really a tie Would there be a tiebreaker When the announcer declared "Co-champions: the University of Michigan Wolverines!" our anxiety finally boiled over into celebration as we took the -- shared -- one-spot on the podium.
Officially, the judges misinterpreted a rule that caused Chris's routine starting value to be lower than it should have been. After the adjustment to the start value his score was raised to the 14.450 mark, resulting in a tie. Championship competitions are usually won by a slim margin; nonetheless, ties are not common in this sport, which makes this event all the more amazing.
Being able to share this experience with our teammates, our closest friends, and the emotional rollercoaster that ultimately concluded with us standing atop the awards podium will be engrained in our memories forever.
Players Mentioned
