Liberty University Club Sports Athletics
Gymnasts raise bar, set sights on season-opener at OSU
1/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
First-year Head Coach Tim Kappel is setting the bar high for Liberty University's men's and women's gymnastics teams, which will open their seasons at the National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs (NAIGC) sanctioned Buckeye Blast, Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Ohio State.
"I personally have never been on the floor of an NAIGC competition," said Kappel, who has trained numerous elite gymnasts to NCAA scholarships. "It would be my goal to see this program run just like an NCAA program as a club team, to start leaning it that way. What we're trying to do is to take it pretty seriously and step up the level of how it's being done."
Kappel, who also owns Pure Gymnastics in Lynchburg, said the transition for athlete and coach has gone smoothly and he is pleased with the results so far.
"It took them a little while to adjust to my style and it's been a learning curve for me as well, trying to find the right proportions of how hard to push it and where you can grow with it," he said.
The team held its last practice before the competition Friday afternoon at its gym in The Plaza in Lynchburg.
"We've been here four days a week since we've been back," Kappel said, noting the five-week Christmas break over the holidays didn't help. "This sport is all about being consistent, so when you're off for a month, it shows. This weekend's meet is more of a reality check and a tester, to see how everyone looks."
Liberty has 20 student-athletes on its roster, including five women and four men who will make the trip to Ohio. Sophomores Cameron Streeter and Rufus Chappell and junior Austin Minuto will enter the all-around competition for the men while freshman Gabe Villahermosa will compete in the high bar, vault, and floor, but not the rings, pommel horse, or parallel bars.
"I'm not sure exactly what to expect, but I'm from the Midwest, and I'm excited to go up that way and see what we see," said Streeter, who has family coming down from his home in Michigan for the event. "It should be a really good competition."
For the Lady Flames, junior Ashley Grim and freshman Leah Corpora will perform on the balance beam, floor, and vault while junior Jessie Hogue and freshmen Julian Bouton and McKella Johnson will enter the all-around competition, adding the uneven bars.
"I think we've grown leaps and bounds from last year, even though we're a smaller team," Hogue said. "We've kind of had to have a cram session because we've been gone for four weeks and had two weeks to prepare for this, so that was tough, but we've had to adapt and overcome."
Besides host Ohio State, Liberty's women will compete against Virginia Tech, Kent State, Washington University-St. Louis, Slippery Rock, Pittsburgh, and Michigan in its group.
Liberty will travel to a meet hosted by two-time defending NAIGC national champion James Madison University on Feb. 20 and one at UNC Wilmington on March 19 before possibly hosting a meet in preparation for NAIGC nationals in Sacramento, Calif., in April. Kappel may only take one or two men and women to California, but hopes to send a complete team to next year's event in Ohio.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
