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The Washington softball team was featured on ESPN's College Sports Blog. Graham Hays breaks down the upcoming season as well as an in-depth look on sophomore and starting pitcher Kaitlin Inglesby.
Check out the article here:
Check out this story by The Daily on the UW Softball team where they reflect on last year's run in the Women's College World Series, talk about the upcoming season, and introduce the freshmen squad.
Check out this video on junior Lauren Rogers from the UW Gymnastics team:
The Washington women's soccer team recently signed eight talented players to National Letters of Intent. One of the signees, Fairview High School's Berkley Gamble (Boulder, Colo.), chatted with Josh Lindenstien of Boco Preps TV on the eve of National Signing Day. Check out this video of Gamble talking about her decision to play for UW next year:
Washington assistant gymnastics coach Elise Ray has recently been inducted into Howard County Women's Athletic Hall of Fame.
Here is a great read about Ray's induction, written by Andrew Conrad of the Howard County Times (Columbia, Md.): Elise Ray No one would ever mistake
Columbia for a hotbed of world class gymnastics, but thanks to 2000 Wilde Lake
High School graduate Elise Ray, Columbia can always proudly call itself the
town that produced a world class gymnast. "I wasn't a high school
athlete (because gymnastics was not a varsity sport when Ray was at Wilde Lake)
but it didn't make a difference to them," said Ray, who was born in
Florida but moved to Columbia at a young age. "(The community) was just so
supportive. Going to public school was a huge priority for me and my family,
and they worked with me." Whether it meant allowing her
to miss classes to commute to and from her training facility in Gaithersburg,
showing flexibility with making up work, or just sharing congratulatory words
upon her return from a successful international competition, Ray is grateful
for the community support she received in Columbia, and still counts that as an
integral part of the realization of her Olympic dream. As a 2000 Olympian in Sydney,
Ray remains a fan favorite and one of the most memorable members of the U.S.
team that was awarded team bronze medals in 2010 when it was discovered that
the Chinese team had falsified the age of one of its competitors at the Sydney
Games. Unfortunately for Ray, that was
not the only scandal that stained the 2000 Summer Games. After officials inexplicably
set the vault two inches low, Ray -- along with many other gymnasts -- fell twice
off of the improperly set apparatus. The vault was eventually corrected,
and Ray stuck her landing en route to a 13th place finish in the all-around,
best of any American. "I didn't know what was
wrong," Ray told the New York Times in 2000. "It looked low to
me, but I thought it was my nerves. Definitely falling on your first event
shoots your confidence way down. That was the toughest part, just to keep
going." A stable coaching staff might
have eased its gymnasts through the stormy situation, but... U.S. team coordinator Bela
Karolyi earned a reputation during the 2000 Games as an overbearing drill
sergeant, and he feuded openly with gymnasts and fellow U.S. coaches alike. But gymnasts are trained to
persist through adversity with a bright smile on their face, and that's exactly
what Ray did. After Sydney, Ray found a return
to normalcy at the University of Michigan,
where she studied English and thrived as a 14-time NCAA All-American and
three-time NCAA national champion, becoming the most decorated female gymnast
in the history of the school. After graduating in 2005, Ray
eventually took a job performing with the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. After several years
living in Las Vegas, she came back to Maryland to be closer to her family
(parents Ellen and Bill and brother Taylor) and coached at the Carroll
Gymnastics Center in Hampstead until recently. The fall of 2011 was a
memorable time for Ray, who was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame
in late August and was hired as an assistant coach at the University of Washington in late September. Washington head coach Joanne
Bowers coached Ray at Michigan. "She has just been
fantastic which doesn't surprise me in the least, with the dedication and focus
she had when she was at Michigan," Bowers said. "She has been through
so many different things at the highest level so the girls gave her their
undivided attention right away ... I'm just thrilled that she's here and that I'm
getting to work with her." Ray now lives in Seattle and
continues to coach younger gymnasts at summer camps. While she has done some work as
a color commentator for the Big 10 Network and has expressed interest in
becoming a writer, Ray clearly has found her calling in coaching. "I'd been thinking about
coaching in college and the timing couldn't have been more perfect," said
Ray, who helped lead Washington to an upset of No. 1 UCLA on Jan. 27.
"It's very, very different. I've learned a lot technically already.
(College gymnasts) very much want to keep learning but they know their bodies
and they know themselves." And while the Olympic Games in Sydney was the tumultuous
culmination of a dream realized, Ray looks at winning the National Championship
in St. Louis, which qualified her for the Olympic team, as the pinnacle of her
athletic career. "I had done a ton of
mental preparation. I was going to make (the Olympic) team and nothing was
going to stand in my way," said Ray, who compared the feeling to how
Michael Jordan must have felt on his best nights. "Everything just aligned
and everything felt effortless. I can say that I never had that feeling up
until then and I've never had it since." --Andrew Conrad Ruby Engreitz was named one of CollegeSports360's Primetime Performers of the Week (one of 16 honorees). Four of these athletes were also named Primetime Pacesetters of the Week and Engreitz also received this honor. Check out the following link to see the entire story:http://www.collegesports360. |
