A Year Older, A Year Wiser
4/19/2018 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - With all the success that coach Jerry Reighard's Central Michigan gymnastics program has enjoyed over the years, it's almost hard to believe that there is a first in 2018.
Dennelle Pedrick, a sophomore who has continued her ascension in program lore, will become the first in program history to compete in two NCAA Championships when she steps in front of the bright lights this weekend at Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis.
Pedrick became the 11th Chippewa gymnast to qualify for the NCAA Championships last spring. She punched her ticket to the '18 championships two weeks ago by winning the floor exercise at the Tuscaloosa Regional. Last year, she won a regional title on vault and placed 29th at the NCAA.
Not only is Pedrick the first in CMU history to compete more than once at the NCAA Championships, she is also the first two-time regional champion.
"Well I think it speaks a lot about what Denelle's competitive nature is," said Reighard, who is in his 34th year in charge of the program. "Each time she's been at a regional, she's found a way, made a way, to move on. That's a huge accomplishment."
It has been an up-and-down year emotionally and competitively for Pedrick, a native of Wilcox, Saskatchewan.
She made history - the first of her CMU firsts - a year ago in becoming the program's first freshman to qualify for the NCAA Championships. In August, she helped Team Canada to a silver medal in the World University Games, a major international feather in any gymnast's cap.
Shortly thereafter, her mother Carolynn left Saskatchawan to join her father Del in Romania, where Del - a highly successful hockey coach/administrator in Canada - had relocated a year earlier to become a technical director of a hockey development organization.
"For me, a 24-hour drive (to Saskatchewan) is the same as overseas," said Pedrick, who seems to have adapted to seeing family members sparingly. "I don't get to see them often either way. This year and last year, they came to one meet. I get to look forward to that meet where I get to see them, they get to watch me compete. And then this year I got to go to Romania for Christmas break so I got to see them there."
Pedrick's grandmother passed away, taking Pedrick out of the lineup - and way from training - for a spell in mid-March. And then Pedrick was hit by another blow in early April when a high school friend, Kaleb Dahlgren, was one of the players injured when the bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, collided with a tractor-trailer in Sasketchewan. Sixteen people died as a result of the collision. Dahlgren is recovering.
And while Pedrick said she was not particularly close to Dahlgren, the incident hit home with Canadians, for whom junior hockey is sacred, and with Pedrick, whose family - all three of her siblings have been deeply involved athletically for their entire lives -- is quite familiar with the risks of traveling for athletic endeavors, of being away from each other for prolonged periods, of brutally cold and unforgiving Canadian winters.
"I feel like I've been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows through this year and last year," Pedrick said. "It's just helped me develop into a better person, a better athlete and a better teammate.
"I mean I can be there for others if they go through similar situations. I can help with this team now that I have better experience and everything. One of the things I said to myself actually before regionals, before my floor routine, I just said, 'Do it for Nana and do it for Kaleb.'"
She posted a career-best 9.900 in the event.
Certainly, the experience Pedrick gained at last year's NCAA Championships will benefit her this weekend. The site, Chaifetz Arena, is the same as as it was in 2017, and she won't be as taken by the bright lights and the enormity of the moment as perhaps she might have been a year ago. She can also draw on her World University Games experience.
She also goes in with 365 days of maturity and growth, some of which has not come easily.
"You work with what you have," Pedrick said. "I don't know, I feel like life is just about adjusting. Lots of things are going to be thrown at you that you didn't expect and it's just about overcoming them and seeing them as a building blocks."