The UW Oshkosh gymnastics team won their first home competition of the season last Thursday by a score of 18.825-175.150 against the Eau Claire Blugolds

The Titans managed to outscore the Blugolds in four events where they scored 46.50 on the uneven bars, 46.025 on the vault, 45.725 in the floor exercise and 45.575 on the balance beam. This was nothing new for the defending WIAC champions.

Trinity Sawyer, a Junior on the team, feels relatively satisfied with the team’s performance so far this season.

“I feel really good about my team;s performance against Eau Claire,” Sawyer said. “We have had some injuries preventing us from being all that can be but with that said the girls that went out and competed did well. Of course there are little things we can fix to add to our scores but overall, a good job.”

Sawyer placed first in the vault with a score of 9.67, and even with that winning score Sawyer still pushes herself to do more.

“When it comes to my individual performance, I’m always my biggest judge, but I put everything I had into the two events I did and they went well,” Sawyer said. “All I can try to do is clean up and execute small things to earn a higher score for my team.”

Injuries have impacted the Titans in this short season, which has forced some of the underclassmen on the team to step up and take on a larger role for the team.

That is what Freshman, Emily Buffington did.

Buffington won the uneven parallel bars with a score of 9.500, and placed second in the floor exercise behind teammate Olivia Keller scoring a 9.475.

Buffington is working on refining her skills so that she can better benefit the team as this season goes on.

“This season I am just trying to work on cleaning up my skills and having more confidence with my training, but also giving more back to the team where they need me,” Buffington said.

From my brief interview with Buffington it seemed that she is a young leader that will play an even bigger role in future years for the Titans gymnastics team.

The Titans take on Winona State University this Thursday, March 18 at home. Coach Lauren Karnitz has confidence in her team and confidence is something that she is trying to instill in her younger athletes as the team prepares for Warriors to come to town.

“I think we continue to prepare the way we have been and work on the confidence of our freshmen which will be key for us,” Karnitz said. “We need the newcomers to act like veterans now, and I think they’re up to the task.”

This will be the team’s last meet until they take on the Warhawks from UW-Whitewater on April 3 which will be the last meet of the season.

The Titans are looking to close strong, and a win against Winona will only continue to carry the momentum for their final showdown.