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January 26, 2004 Hello Husky Fans: For our trip to Oregon State, we took a chartered bus. It is so nice. No waiting in lines at the ticket counter, no waiting in lines at the security screening area, no waiting at the gate for the flight, getting the rental cars, driving to Corvallis from either Portland, or Eugene, and the number one reason why it's great to take the bus, you can take on your blanket, pillow, snacks, movies, and we make a rest stop in Kelso-Longview. We got down to Corvallis, and promptly went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. Good food. I haven't been to Corvallis since Regionals 2002, and I was so excited as we pulled into the parking lot at the hotel and there was a brand new STARBUCKS!!! So I just finished my Venti drip and I can feel the caffeine soaring through my veins and giving me a happy, happy feeling. The morning of the meet everyone is on their own. There is a continental breakfast downstairs, and we will gather in the lobby at 4 p.m. for a team meeting then off to the competition. At our team meeting the women looked ready to go. After arriving at Gill I spoke with OSU coach Tanya Service for quite a while, and just caught up on stuff. Her daughter Alana is turning eight this weekend, wow how time flies. On to the competition. It was a dual meet that I will not soon forget. OSU started on vault and the Huskies started on bars. OSU struggled a bit on vault and had to count a fall. Your Huskies did the job on bars with the event high score of 9.925 turned in by senior Emily Pritchard. After the first event we were ahead by a full point with a team score of 49.150, and that is huge. We flipped events and OSU went to bars and we went to vault. We also struggled a bit on vault and now we were only up by .3. I knew that we were in for a battle. We next went to floor and OSU to beam. OSU had their normal solid beam and scored a 49.150 The Huskies were on floor and we did well scoring a 49.150 anchored by Carly Dockendorf's fantastic 9.925. We were at this point .300 ahead of OSU with them going to floor and your Huskies going to beam. It is always difficult to end on beam. Beam is always a mental event especially being the visiting team. Our first athlete fell on her series, so now the pressure was on the remaining five to hit. Since it was a dual meet they were alternating events so that everyone could watch each routine. As each routine was done Frank Lee and I were calculating where we were score wise. Finally it came down to the last athletes. Molly Seaman was our last competitor and she was placed in a very pressure filled situation. She knew she needed to hit her routine as we were now virtually tied with OSU. Molly did the job and scored a 9.950. Unfortunately OSU had won the competition by .025. It was like the NCAA Regionals all over again, losing by .025. After it was all over I huddled up with the team and I told them how proud I was of their performance. After the first athlete fell it would have been easy to think that we were done, but there is no quit in this team. I have always told them to NEVER give up, and they didn't. They fought to the very end, and ended up with a 196.025 to OSU's 196.050. This week we are ranked 10th. We are traveling to Stanford to take on the 7th ranked Cardinal, so root on your Huskies.
Bob Levesque
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