The flashes of potential and high scoring outbursts are evidence that the No. 23 West Virginia gymnastics team possesses the pieces to be a contending team. With a long road trip to wind down the season, head coach Jason Butts feels it's time for the team to put it all together.
Oddly enough the Mountaineers (10-3, 5-0 EAGL) dropped one spot in the rankings heading into New Hampshire (8-2, 2-1 EAGL) even though their season average rose to 195.52.
WVU is in the midst of a stretch featuring four out of five away from home. The late season road trip might work in the teams favor as the young Mountaineers learned the ropes and gained some consistency at home which will hopefully pay dividends on the road.
"If anything I don't want them to be intimidated by being in somebody else's facility," Butts said.
"I know we're comfortable here, but our big goals are not going to happen here this year, we're not hosting the EAGL (championship), we're not hosting regionals, so we need to learn to compete a little more focused and intense on the road like we do here in the Coliseum."
The Mountaineers started a three game road trip last week with a first place finish in a quad-meet with Maryland, Rutgers and William and Mary.
With a season-high score of 49.175, West Virginia took first on the bars last week while also finishing as the top beam team at the meet. The squad also placed second on vault and floor on its way to scoring 194.8 points.
With the team showing improvement on bars every week the Mountaineers could soon complete the cycle and become ranked in the top 25 on all four events. WVU ranks No. 22 (48.543) on beam and dropped to No. 23 on vault (48.775) and floor (48.807).
Heading into Durham, N.H., the team is averaging 48.418 points per week on bars putting them 35th in the nation.
"We don't keep making the same mistakes over and over, and I really like that because we can come in and fix those, whereas if it was the same mistake it would hammer away at their confidence," Butts said.
"It's working, we just need to make it all work at the same time this week."
This is the final week the rankings will be based on the season average as next week they will be determined by the teams Regional Qualifying Score. The RQS is found by taking a team's and an all-around competitor's six best regular season meet scores (three of which must be away), eliminating the high score and averaging the remaining five scores.
Butts stressed the importance of the next two meets, saying that the team could raise its RQS score if they score 195 both weeks, eliminating their two lower scores on the road at Bowling Green (193.475) and Michigan (194.05).
Sophomore Hope Sloanhoffer was named EAGL Co-Gymnast of the Week after posting her sixth straight 39.0-plus score and taking the top spot on the podium in the all-around the last two weeks. It was the third time the Cornwall, N.Y., native earned the award.
Junior Kaylyn Millick has come on strong competing in the all-around the last two weeks and also scored a career high 9.9 on bars last week.
The first-year coach has had the luxury of a deep roster, often giving him and the coaching staff trouble setting the lineups.
"The girls pushing seven through ten (on the lineup) are pushing hard to get in there, in the past we didn't have that depth or once they got to the middle of the season they'd give up," Butts said. "This team is so motivated to be good that those in their spots even the No. 10 wants to be No. 9 because that's taking the step in the right direction.
"In the gym their doing all kinds of extra stuff. We're putting up the assignments and they keep going beyond what we're asking them to do."
In the EAGL West Virginia trails only No. 19 N.C. State, while the teams come third and fourth in the Southeast region behind No. 3 Georgia and No. 1 Florida.
WVU holds a 25-8 series lead against UNH, the team's final EAGL opponent until the league championship on March 24.
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