Brittney Sooksengdao ’16 placed third on the beam in this past weekend’s Ivy Classic. In an interview with the News, she discussed the gymnastics team’s goals for the season, how the Bulldogs performed at the Ivy Classic and her personal goals. 

Q: What has the team been honing in on and improving as the season goes on?

A: Each meet we’ve been improving our scores and our consistency and increasing the number of hit routines. The goal of every week is to hit 24 of 24 and we’ve been getting better and better with each meet. Honestly, we haven’t peaked yet and we have a lot of room to improve.

Q: What have been some of your personal goals for the year been and how are they coming along?

A: My personal goals are to win the ECAC beam championship again. I want to be able to be a big contributor to the team every year. I also want to be able to up my career high on floor.

Q: How have the freshmen been able to contribute this season?

A: Our freshmen are great. There were only two freshmen for my year, [but] there are four this year. [Anella Anderson ’17] is a really great all-around competitor for us. [Tatiana Winkelman ’17] is a really hard worker in the gym. Even though [Mitzi Unda-Sosa ’17] and [Kacie Traina ’17] have been injured this year, they are there every single day with us practicing and overcoming their injuries and all of that matters.

Q: That was a close win over Penn and Cornell. How did you all manage to edge out the win?

A: [The Ivy Classic] was incredible. It was an incredible feeling. We fought so hard for every tenth of a point as a team and it was a very collective effort to get second place [Sunday]. We wanted it and put our hearts into it as a team. We were competing in it mentally with our teammates and we all are proud of how we did yesterday.

Q: How did the team perform against Brown compared to what you expected?

A: Brown had one of its best meets. Between Penn, Cornell and us, none of us had our best meets, so it made it so tough to fight for those next three places. That’s why we fought so hard to get every point.

Q: What have you been doing well this season?

A: Personally, I’ve been much more consistent. Thinking back to the beginning of last season, you’re trying to understand how college gymnastics meets work, how to compete and perform for you team. I’m doing better at consistently scoring well in all events.

Q: Who performed well last weekend?

A: [Morgan Traina ’15] had a great meet this past weekend. She hit some of our highest scores across all four events. She came in second in the all-around with a score of 38.825, 0.175 below the first-place finish.

Q: What have your favorite parts about this year’s team been?

A: What I love about our team is that we’re all so close. We’re such a small team that individually, every single one of us is close. We’re all really different too, so we all have something different to contribute. We have a great team dynamic, so both last year and this year it’s been really great to be a part of the team.