Gymnastics finishes season

The Southeast Missouri State gymnastics team placed fourth out of the six teams at the Midwest Independent Conference Championships with a score of 194.450.

This was Southeast's second highest score as a team overall this season.

Individually, sophomore Ashley Thomas's performance in the all-around was a career-best 39.225.

The performance in the all-around was good enough to advance Thomas to the NCAA regionals at 4 p.m. this Saturday in Norman, Oklahoma.

"A few strengths for us is that there is definitely a fight and determination to get to NCAA regionals," Southeast coach Kristi Ewasko said. "Having 13 out of the 15 as freshman and sophomores being in that arena and atmosphere gave them a little bit drive to realize, 'OK, let's do this again and have a longer season next year.'"

Ewasko said being so young as well and putting the pressure of competing in a conference championship on top of that kind of got to her athletes.

Ewasko has been coaching the gymnastics team at Southeast for five years. Before coaching, Ewasko was a gymnast for Auburn University.

"I understand the stress and the team atmosphere," Ewasko said. "It does help relate and try to understand the organization day to day and when they are going through the struggles."

Thomas explained why the MIC Championships are so important to the team.

"It is kind of just what we work all year for, all the other meets leading up to conference," Thomas said. "Conference is almost like the big finale, and it's really fun if you do well at conference. That was the motivation the team had, to finish on a good note."

Thomas has been competing in gymnastics since she was 6 years old. After 13 years of competing there has to be some trick to staying focused at a meet.

"We are told not to watch the other teams," Thomas said. "What we really try and do is focus on our team and take it event by event."

This will be the first time Thomas has competed in the NCAA regional.

"It's exciting," Thomas said. "It's a little less nerve racking because if you make it to nationals great, but if you don't you had a great season with an exclamation point at the end. So it's a little less nerve racking and more exciting."

Despite Thomas being the only member on Southeast who qualified for the NCAA regional she is not the only one at practice.

"Right now we are trying to just encourage the team to experience this with Ashley," Ewasko said. "It does get hard to go from 15 training to one training. To be there to support her and encourage her and just experience this with her. To be able to see the big arena, the lights, the fireworks, and the dramatics that go along with these types of championships. I want them to see that and realize let's do that and come back next year as a team."

Erin Brady was the only senior on the team and will be the one student-athlete that will be missing from next year's gymnastics team.

"She had career bests and season highs," Ewasko said. "She left in her own fashion. It was great to have her around."

The MIC championships was the final meet for the 2015 gymnastic Redhawks to compete together.

"Overall we just flatlined, we never reached our max potential, but we had better things than we did last year," Ewasko said. "We just kind of plateaued out and didn't really reach our potential. A lot of that is we are young and don't realize what 12-week seasons are comprised of because in club they compete five to six weeks. It's a big difference"

Thomas will compete in regionals this Friday at Oklahoma University where she will try to advance from regionals to nationals.

"I kind of like that no one else can do gymnastics," Thomas said. "Anybody can pick up a basketball and learn how to shoot a basketball, but it takes years upon years to learn how to do flips and do them safely and do them every single time. That is what is cool about gymnastics."