While last year’s women’s gymnastics team had a lot of talented seniors and equaled the best result in school history at the MAC Championship, I feel this year’s team is better.

There are several reasons for this, but I find the three most important to be the improvement of the returning gymnasts, the level of contribution by freshmen and the balance among the classes.

The improvement from the returning athletes has been the biggest reason for success so far this season, as seniors Natalie Sutter and Marisa Liptak have made big contributions. The former has assumed all-around responsibility and the latter has taken over as a beam starter.

Juniors Kim Gotlund and Megan Melendez build off highly successful sophomore seasons, with Gotlund going to regionals last year and having an overall higher all-around score so far this season. Melendez has taken on an extra event with her addition to vault’s starting lineup and is averaging higher scores on both beam and bars than she did last season.

Another performer of importance has been sophomore Amanda Stepp, who has come on and assumed starting roles in three events: vault, beam and floor. This improvement shows not only the potential of the recruits but the coaching and hard work from the athlete to step in and be effective from day one.

Looking at freshman contributions, are Jaelyn Olsen and Lauren Africano are showing promise in the vein as Stepp.

Olsen and Africano have been spark plugs for their respective events. While not contributing in multiple events, they have been leading the pack in the ones they do compete in, as Olsen is the score leader on vault and Africano a close second on bars behind Melendez.

I feel that this scenario parlays itself nicely into the fact that there is a fluid combination of upper and lower levels of college class.

Last season, a lot of the scores and impact were dominated by the upperclassmen. Though they were contributing, the impact of underclassmen, especially freshmen, was lacking.

I think that if the last two meets are signs of the future of this team, it has the pieces in place to be in the running for regional, which I’m sure the upperclassmen would love.