Most students at AU might be surprised to hear that the AU women's gymnastics club team competed in a national competition over the weekend. That's because most students probably weren't even aware that AU had a gymnastics team.
"People don't really know about us because we don't have meets," junior Rachel Centariczki said. "But we hope to raise some more awareness about the team in the next year."
It looks like the team is doing just that. In their first year as a recognized club sport, the Eagles qualified for the National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs national meet.
Though it had qualified individuals at a national meet in New York last season, the team's trip to Berkeley, Calif., over the weekend marked their first national competition as a team.
"Our basic team goal was to get an actual team out there, which meant we needed four girls on each event," said sophomore Ashley Spiro, who along with Centariczki and sophomore Rachel Provencher were the only qualifiers at last year's nationals.
The trio was joined by freshmen Arielle Muth, Julie Wojtulewicz and Katie Zaleski at this year's nationals, finishing fifth in their session and in the top 20 overall. Spiro also qualified and competed in four individual final events.
The team, which has 15 members, began competing for the first time this season in meets at James Madison, Maryland and Pennsylvania. They took fourth place at a Syracuse invitational and finished sixth at a Virginia Tech meet earlier this year before qualifying for nationals.
"It's a huge feat for us to have even made it out [to nationals] in terms of qualifying and fundraising," said Centariczki, adding that they could only afford to send six competitors to the competition. "The season has been kind of an uphill battle."
After being started in 2003, the gymnastics team has struggled to get the university to recognize it as a club sport. It eventually got recognition, but still faces challenges.
One major issue for the team was finding practice space. The team goes to local gyms to practice. That means they also have to find ways to pay for practice space and travel to competitions. They will be eligible for funding next year.
"We do everything through fundraising or out of our own pockets," Spiro said.
The rough times motivated the gymnasts to work even harder on building a successful program. They finished each competition this year by having at least one top-10 finish in each event, creating a good foundation.
"Our goal for next year is to have a strong, solid team so we can get more competitive," Centariczki said. "We also want to get school funding and have a home meet here in D.C. so we can show people that we're out there"
