Almost — that was the theme of the 2024 season for the Ithaca College gymnastics team. Razor-sharp margins at each meet, but it wasn’t enough. 

In their seven team losses last season, the Bombers had an average margin of defeat of 2.918 points. Their closest meet came against rival SUNY Cortland with a paper-thin defeat of 0.3 points. One of the consistent gymnasts last year was junior Emily Kobusky on the balance beam.

“Last year we were a strong team,” Kobusky said, “We just had some confidence issues, and a lack of confidence in our own training.”

Last season, the Bombers were plagued by injuries and a lack of depth on the uneven bars. On bars, the team only averaged about 9.213 points. They came in fifth out of six teams at the Empire State Collegiate Championships hosted at Cornell University and 4th out of seven teams at the National Collegiate Gymnastics Association East Regional Championship hosted at Ben Light Gymnasium. This season, the team should be much deeper on the uneven bars with three first-year students. 

Senior Nicole Lonski, representing the team on the uneven bars, floor exercise and vault, said early success is important for the directory of the whole season.

“I think last year we were a little bit lax on getting routines together,” Lonski said. “So then that goes back to affecting our confidence. Getting ready earlier will have people being more competitive.”

This season, unlike last year, the team has five graduating seniors after losing no seniors last season. Lonski said she has embraced the leadership role and treats it very seriously.

“As the upperclassmen we have just been working on making sure that the first-years feel included,” Lonski said. “[We are] making sure that they feel confident in their position on the team.”

This team is led by Ithaca College Hall of Famer, head coach Rick Suddaby who is entering his 40th year with the team. On his team are multiple former All-Americans: Kobusky on balance beam, junior Grace Murray on floor exercise, senior Skye Cohen in the all-around and senior Jillian Freyman on beam. 

“I have a good sense of sitting back and seeing the whole picture,” Suddaby said. “I have experience in helping athletes build confidence and how to get an athlete to be more coachable and how to pull a team together and unify us. … We can have little successes, but we don’t really succeed till we go as a team. And so to build that team unity, the team vision, the team goals, the team support system, it’s just all very critical.”

Suddaby referenced depth as a reason for why the Bombers struggled last season. 

“If someone is injured or sick, and we have to replace them, we want to be able to replace them with someone who can score almost as much as the person who is being replaced,” Suddaby said via email. “This makes us deep and increases our ability to be competitive at any given meet. In our second meet, we lost our top bar worker to a season-ending knee injury. We lost what was likely to be a 9.7.”

Consistency was also an issue for the team as they only had three gymnasts out of a 21 person roster that averaged a score of 9.5 or better. Those athletes were sophomore Lauren Babineaux (9.468), senior Abby Chesshire (9.483) and Kobusky (9.650).

Depth is very important in the sport of college gymnastics, especially when you’re going against top competition at every single meet. Gymnasts are evaluated individually but their scores also count for the team as a whole. The better the gymnast does, the more points they contribute to the whole team.

“Depth is important in college gymnastics because winning and losing is determined by our top scores on each event,” Suddaby said, “If someone is out, we lose points if we can’t replace them at a similar level.”

This year, the South Hill squad will compete against many tough teams in the NCGA East Region, which consists of SUNY Brockport, Rhode Island College, Springfield College, Ursinus College and SUNY Cortland. The biggest competition to the Bombers is Brockport. The Brockport Golden Eagles have won the last four NCGA East Region Championships and have a history of success. 

“Of course, we’re dying to beat Brockport,” Suddaby said. “They’ve been the leader in the league forever, and we just want to be at that competitive level. … That’s what we’re after. And we have to be kind of smart and play our game, but we have to be good at what we do and be very consistent, and then we could beat them.”

In the two times that the South Hill squad faced Brockport last season, they came close in the first meet, losing by just 1.05 points while the Golden Eagles scored a 4.775 point victory in the second head–to–head matchup. The team has only beaten Brockport 7 times and lost their last 18 meets against them.

All in all, the South Hill squad is looking to be competitive and overcome the adversity of being toward the bottom of the NCGA East Region Championship last year and not qualifying as a team for the NCGA National Championships. 

“We’re really excited,” Kobusky said. “We know that our training looks good, and we know that we have a great shot this year.” 

The first meet for the team will be 2 p.m. Jan. 12 against rival SUNY Brockport at Ben Light Gymnasium.