Rutgers gymnastics midseason review

What Rutgers athletic program has the longest consecutive sellout streak? If you guessed the women’s gymnastics team, you win!

Tomorrow February 11 at Livingston Gym, the women’s team on senior day will honor April Baker, Claire Jones and Charly Santagado. The Penn Quakers, Yale Bulldogs, and B1G rival Maryland Terrapins come to town. Also be prepared for a “Pink Out” to support breast cancer awareness. Santagado has been injured this season, but was a key member of the team as a freshman when they reached the NCAA regionals.

So far this season, the team is 8-5 overall, 1-3 in B1G competition. The team’s best event has been the floor exercise lately, but overall this season it’s the balance beam where they rank No. 31 nationally. Jones leads the team in the floor exercise and shares the team lead on balance beam with Makenzey (Micki) Shank. Shank had a great week of practice as per the team’s twitter feed. Baker leads the team on the uneven bars, though Shank and Libby Groden have been nipping at her heels all season.

Their overall eight wins is best in the league. Their non-conference schedule includes four more meets on the road: at Illinois-Chicago (2/19), at Towson (2/24), at Southeast Missouri (3/3), and at Central Michigan (3/5).

In league competition, the standings are jammed up through only four meets. The Knights if they defeat Maryland (1-6 overall, 0-4 B1G) can improve their standing slightly. After that the Lady Knights only have one more chance with the Big Five Meet on March 11. That meet will include Big Ten foes Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Penn State in Iowa City.

Rutgers will host the Big Ten championships March 18 at the RAC though which is exciting for the program and New Jersey gymnastics community at large. The last time they hosted an NCAA qualifying tournament was 2006 when they hosted the EAGL tournament.

TICKETS ON SALE FOR BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIPS