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Gymnastics is not a sport that anyone peaks at in the early stages of the season.

Marshall head gymnastics coach Amy Daniels is keeping this in mind as her team opens the 2009-10 season on the road against Benson/Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg today.

"We're feeling a little bit unprepared, especially with the snow day," said Daniels. "We typically only have one meet before Christmas, but this year we have three. We have a couple of girls that have never competed before, but in gymnastics, you build for the end of the season."

Daniels, who is in her third year of coaching at Marshall, said that the experiences of all the early meets will help out at section time when it truly counts.

"For a lot of these girls, it's the first time showing their skills since the summer," Daniels said. "It doesn't come that easy if they're not in shape. Come January, we'll be in good shape. The girls will be getting the hang of things."

The Tigers didn't graduate any gymnasts last season, so Daniels will look to seniors Emily Facile and Heather Buysse, junior Ashley Kurth and freshman Nikki McNair to be solid competitors again this year.

"Nikki made it to state and Emily came close to going to state," Daniels said. "Emily missed going in the uneven bars by one place. That will probably be her goal this year. Ashley finished good overall and Heather had a good year too."

As the Tigers' lone state gymnastics participant last season, McNair scored a 36.450 in the all-around competition, which was good enough for 15th place.

"Nikki did well," said Daniels. "The venue was new to her and so was the competition. We did have the opportunity to go up early and watch the team competition, so that helped."

McNair recorded her best average (9.350) in the the vault. She scored a 9.300 in the balance-beam, 9.075 in the floor exercise and 8.725 on the uneven bars.

"This year, Nikki will be able to build off of last year's state experience," Daniels said. "She'll be less nervous and will most likely do even better."

For the first time since Daniels took over as the head coach, she will have senior leadership.

"This year is the first year since I've been coaching that we have a senior on the team," she said. "We've never had that senior leadership. The girls over the past three or four years have set goals and worked hard to get there. My expectation is for the girls to become better gymnasts. Ultimately, it's up to them. It depends on how hard they want to work for it. I'm just there to help them along the way."

Buysse was selected as the team captain.

"We are confident in Heather," said Daniels. "She'll do a wonderful job. She is a leader by her actions. She leads by example and that is something that this team needs."

The Tiger roster consists of 12 gymnasts this year and Daniels believes that many of them could step up and provide additional leadership.

"We're looking for all the girls to step in and lead our team," she said. "We have a team mentality this year more so than other years because we have such small numbers. You have to fill in where you can to help everyone out."

Senior Taylor Blomme, sophomores Carly Salfer, Hannah Wenker, Samantha Madden, Shelby Maes, Stephanie St. Aubin, freshman Claire Roesler and seventh-grader Holly Meyer also make up the team.

Last year, Marshall struggled the most in the balance-beam competition. While it's too soon to tell what apparatus will be a strength this season, Daniels said that injuries and sickness may be hard to overcome early on.

"I'm not sure what our strength will be yet," she said. "We're hoping to improve on the beam. That was our weakness last year. We'll hit it hard and try to improve there. The biggest struggle will be keeping them healthy."

The Tigers host their first meet on Dec. 17 against Southwest Conference rival Worthington.

"Besides injuries and sickness dragging us down, the girls are ready to cheer each other on," said Daniels. "That's a good precursor for the rest of the season."