With the coming of every new year comes an even newer sense of promise.
For the Ball State University gymnastics team, that sense of promise looms with possibility going into the second week of the season.
"I see a lot of the girls with the vision I have of taking the program to the top of the conference and taking them to regionals," coach Nadalie Walsh said. "I feel like in the short term those are things we can do because the girls believe and they are partnering in that vision."
The Cardinals opened their season Jan. 9 with a 190.725-184.350 win against the University of Pennsylvania exhibiting a strong all-around performance despite two consecutive falls on bar routines to open the meet.
"We've been working a lot on the fine details so far this year," Walsh said of her team's first two bar routines of the season. "It is the only thing you can do in our sport of 'perfection.'"
But with a slim margin for error in a quasi-subjective judging system, Walsh said she knows that it all comes down to execution.
"The girls are beginning to buy into the idea of us coming together as a team," Walsh said.
"We've trained even harder this year and they know if we come together and execute, good things will happen."
Walsh, a second-year coach from Oshkosh, Wis., became the program's fifth coach in school history in 2008 after leading the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Titans to a National Collegiate Gymnastics Association National Championship in 2007.
To complement the winning ideologies Walsh brought to the Cardinals, individual efforts have been consciously present in early displays of opportunistic resurgence.
Perhaps the boldest enactment of this resurgence in the season's early and ever-increasing momentum is MAC Gymnastics Specialist of The Week, freshman Nichole Sleeper.
"A few weeks ago I made a list of the girls who I thought would be competing in events, and her name wasn't on that list," Walsh said. "She spent the last two weeks of practice trying to prove herself every single day to the staff. Now she's proved it to herself and has gained the confidence necessary."
The Cardinals, coming off a 1-12 (0-6, Mid-American Conference) performance in 2008, travel to Bowling Green State University Saturday for a 2 p.m. matchup.
Last season, Walsh's team was issued a 187.050-188.100 loss to the Falcons, but with the new season just two weeks underway, she made clear the team knew where it stands.
"We finished ahead of [Bowling Green] last year in the MAC Tournament despite our loss to them in the regular season," Walsh said. "I believe in our ladies 100 percent. It's about setting a high standard, and it's something they know they can do."
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