Cliff Kirkpatrick

Oregon State gymnast Leslie Mak continues to make her way back from a left elbow sprain suffered Jan. 16 at Ohio State during warmups.

Mak expects to be on the balance beam lineup Friday night in Coliseum when the No. 6 Beavers face No. 5 Stanford and Seattle Pacific. However, she won’t be available on the floor exercise of uneven bars.

“It’s feeling better and better every day,” Mak said. “It feels looser. On beam I don’t feel a thing, so it’s a great thing to be in the lineup for that.”

She made a surprise appearance last week in Gill Coliseum against Washington on the beam only. It didn’t look good for her during the week, but she and the coaches came up with the idea of doing a handsfree routine.

Mak hurt other elbow in the past and did the handsfree routine. She’s at the level where she still can do a complicated routine without hands.

“Hopefully I don’t have to do that for too long,” Mak said. “For the beam, it’s not that big of an issue. I have a good enough of a routine to help out the lineup.”

Mak is doing drills on the floor and visualization on the bars so she’ll be ready to jump back in when fully healed.

Rankings
The Beavers dropped a spot in the national rankings to No. 5. Stanford jumped over them with a stellar showing last weekend. Rankings are from the averages of scores. OSU’s average is 195.817 to Stanford’s 195.833

Alabama (196.458), Oklahoma (196.400), Utah (195.992) and Florida (195.833) are ahead of the Pac-10 teams.

The Beavers are fifth nationally on the vault (49.117) and Stanford is third (49.150). They are 12th on the bars (48.817) to No. 5 Stanford (49.033), ninth on the beam (48.750) to No. 17 Stanford (48.508) and  No. 2 on the floor exercise (49.133) to No. 1 Stanford (49.142).

OSU’s Makayla Stambaugh (39.267) is tied for No. 7 nationally in the all-around. Mandi Rodriguez is No. 15 (39.150).

Rodriguez is No. 8 on the vault (9.875). Mak is No. 2 on the bars (9.925) and Laura-Ann Chong is fifth (9.883). Stambaugh is No. 6 on the beam (9.858) and tied for sixth on the floor (9.900).

Overcoming injuries
Here’s my link to Wednesday’s story in the GT on Jen Kesler and Whitney Watson and what they’ve had to overcome physically. Both had offseason ankles surgeries and are contributing this season.

This is a rebuilding year for Kesler because she has her senior year ahead in 2011. However, Watson is a senior and hopes to salvage an injuries plagued career.

Tweet This Post 

Related posts:

1. Cliff: Gymnastics notes
2. Cliff: Gymnastics wins, injuries
3. Cliff: Gymnastics rankings
4. Cliff: Rough gymnastics outing
5. Cliff: Gymnastics preview