Oct. 21, 2009

• Carmichael Auditorium Construction Update

After a year on the road, the University of North Carolina gymnastics team is excited to return home to host three meets in the newly renovated Carmichael Auditorium slated to reopen this winter. The Tar Heels, who return 10 gymnasts and welcome four freshmen, also face formidable ranked opponents when they travel to Florida and Stanford this season.

"I can't even describe how excited we are to return to Carmichael. I think every team, regardless of sport, enjoys the opportunity to compete at home," Coach Derek Galvin said. "The enthusiasm that you find at home is a little bit higher both in the spectators and from within the team."

Galvin and the Tar Heel gymnasts begin the 2010 season at the George Washington Invitational where they will face a six-team field that includes Cornell and Temple. The Tar Heels narrowly defeated Georg Washington last season to take first at the invitational.

The squad will also compete at William & Mary and in the Governor's Cup in the early part of the season.

The Tar Heels host Maryland in a Valentine's Day special on February 14th in the first of three meets in Chapel Hill. Carolina defeated Maryland in a tri-meet last season and hopes to find success again this year against the Terps.

"If you can't get psyched up at a home meet, you can't get psyched up anywhere," Galvin said.

The team will then travel west down Interstate-40 for the Sweetheart Invitational at NC State before traveling to Stanford and Florida. Stanford finished the 2009 season ranked eighth, while the Gators took fourth at the NCAA Championship.

"Going to Stanford and also to Florida, that's going to give us an opportunity to see how we match up against those top teams and see what kind of progress we're making in moving up to being one of those top teams," Galvin said.

Led by a dedicated group of seniors, Carolina returns to Chapel Hill for its final two regular season meets. The team hosts West Virginia on March 13th and Rutgers a week later on March 20th. The Rutgers meet will mark the last home event for seniors Teri Diamond, Kristina Jacob, Christine Nguyen and Kara Wright.

"We're all really excited. It will be nice to have a home crowd again and to get people excited about gymnastics," Wright said. "Carmichael is where we started as freshman, so it will be nice to end there as seniors."

The Tar Heels' postseason begins March 27th in New Hampshire at the EAGL Championships, where the team looks to improve on its third-place finish last season.

"If you ask the people on the team, their goal is to win EAGL and that's our goal every year. This year there are seven teams that could all be in contention to win the EAGL championship," Galvin said. "If all of us have a great meet and no one counts a fall, it's up for grabs. We expect that always to be a very exciting and very tight competition. Last year we walked away from that meet very dissatisfied with our performance. This year we're going in with the intent of competing well on all four events with every competitor and putting ourselves in the best position to win the meet."