April 10, 2008

LOGAN, Utah - Utah State gymnast Megan Tschida will be on some familiar ground this weekend as she leads her teammates to the NCAA North Central Regional, held in Minneapolis, Minn., part of the Twin Cities with her hometown of St. Paul.

Tschida (pronounced Chee-ta), a senior who attended Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, enters the regional meet as an individual, after the USU team missed the regional. This is her third regional appearance, as the Aggies qualified as a team during her freshman and junior seasons.

She will be one of six USU gymnasts who are competing as individuals. Tschida will be joined by junior all-arounder Nicki Felley, sophomore all-arounder Heather Heinrich, as well as well freshmen Nicole Simoneau (bars), Lyndsie Boone (beam) and Jasmine Minion (vault).

At the Western Athletic Conference Championships on March 29, Tschida was the co-champion on the floor exercise with a season-best 9.925, recording her first-ever individual conference title and becoming the Aggies' first floor champion since Liesel Kohler in 2005. Her performance helped Utah State to a fifth-place finish with a team score of 194.150. Tschida's 9.925 on floor was USU's highest score this season on any event and just shy of her career-best of 9.950 established in her freshman season of 2005, which currently ranks as the second-highest score all-time for the Aggies.

Saturday at the regional meet, Tschida will have a large cheering section, made up mostly of family as well as some friends.

"My parents will be there as well as my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, basically everybody," Tschida said.

"Going to her hometown of Minneapolis is icing on the cake for her in what could be her final meet of her career," USU head coach Ray Corn said.

While there is some added pressure of being at an NCAA meet, the pressure of performing in front of family won't bother Tschida.

"I don't think it adds any pressure, I think it's going to be more fun than normal meets," Tschida said. "I enjoy competing in front of my family and they'll all be there, so I'm just excited to get out there and do my best and show them what I've got in what could be my last meet of my career."

In order for it not to be her last meet, Tschida will have to qualify for the NCAA National Championship meet. She enters the regional ranked seventh and will need to duplicate her WAC Championship performance in winning the apparatus, as only the event winners at the regional championships will advance to the national championships, held April 24-26 at Athens, Ga.

"I do believe that if we have anyone qualify for the national championships, the performance that Megan had at the conference meet would have to be repeated and hopefully we'll be going to Georgia," Corn said.

"I'm just going to go out and do exactly what I did at the conference meet, going out and just letting myself go for it all. I just hope to do my best," Tschida said.

She ranks seventh in the region with an RQS of 9.860 on floor and the WAC Championship meet was the fourth time this season in which she won at least a share of the event title.

"Megan was under the gun going into the conference meet, ranked second behind Jasmine (Minion), but her 9.925 is what allowed her to pass Jasmine at the very last minute," Corn said. "So my hat's off to Megan for doing exactly what she had to in order to qualify for regionals."

According to Corn, while the team is disappointed about not going to regionals, marking just the fifth team in 31 years of USU gymnastics that the NCAA regional meet did not include the Aggies, he knows that Tschida's leadership all season long as well as this weekend will ensure that the team returns next year, as a team.

"Her veteran leadership bodes well for our team and our program in that she can help show her teammates how to do things here at regionals, because the experience that our returners bring back and share with the individuals who did not qualify will only help our team make it next year," Corn said.

While Tschida's career may be coming to an end this weekend, there was some doubt as to whether it would even continue past her sophomore year, after she had a severe nerve injury in her leg, which required surgery and she was basically told by doctors that her gymnastics career was over.

"Having that peroneal nerve release in her leg during her sophomore year is a tribute to Megan that she has continued her passion for the sport she loves so much because most people would have retired at the conclusion of that surgery," Corn said. "She has managed things well and worked with the doctors and trainers to allow her to continue and be extremely successful."

Tschida bounced back from the injury and earned first-team all-WAC accolades the last two years, placing third on floor at last year's WAC Championships, before sharing the event title this season. She garnered second-team all-WAC honors on floor as a sophomore after tying for fourth at the conference meet and all-Western Gymnastics Conference accolades as a freshman after finishing fourth.

"I know that my injury set my career back a little bit, but I'm just happy that I was able to bounce back from it," an upbeat Tschida said. "It's been a struggle, my nerves have been hurting a lot, but there's always struggle with glory, so I try to just think about that and enjoy my remaining time in gymnastics."

While her time is winding down on the gymnastics floor of competition, it is also winding down in the classroom, as she is completing her broadcast journalism degree, currently with a 3.14 GPA and is expected to graduate this spring. She was recently recognized with academic all-WAC honors this season, which is her second career academic all-conference award after earning all-WGC accolades as a freshman.

All in all, Tschida is optimistic heading into this weekend, and is just happy to possibly cap her career at the NCAA regionals, especially in her featured event.

"I'm excited about it. I'm just fortunate for the opportunity to perform on floor, which is my best event," Tschida said. "I'm at the point in my career where I'm hurt enough that I can only do one or two events, and I'm just glad that it's floor and I was selected to regionals. I just hope to do my best and have fun."