SOMO News

Friday: Let’s do it all over again

The rest of our teams finished up competition play today and then wrapped up the Games with an awesome Closing Ceremony. It was nice to see so many of our teams and families who had finished up competition the day before, out supporting the men’s and women’s basketball teams in their medal games today. There were lots of hugs and tears to go around after Closing when everyone knew we had reached the end a lot sooner than we all would have hoped.

Team Missouri Head of Delegation Gary Brimer said that it has been a wonderful week all around. “It was actually kind of relaxing for us, but that’s a testament to how well-prepared the coaches were,” Brimer said. “We couldn’t be more proud of our athletes regardless of how they placed in competition. It was a great team and a great time.”

Athletics –
Finished up yesterday!

Aquatics-
The swim team finished up its competition schedule today with the following results:

Jennifer Neihouse: Gold in 25 breaststroke
Logan Hulett: Bronze in the 100 fly
Kirstin Carlson: Silver in the 1,000 free; silver in the 500 free

Basketball (men’s)-
The men played a very tight match in the bronze medal game against Indiana. They had a chance to tie the game with less than a minute left, but it just didn’t work out today. The team was emotional after the loss, but they were happy that so many people from Team Missouri showed up to watch the game and cheer them on. Congrats to the men’s basketball team for a great week of playing their hearts out.

Basketball (women’s)-
The women played in the gold medal game against Ohio this morning, but just couldn’t pull it off, so they took home the silver medal. This team has come a LONG way since the start of Training Camp last June and everyone on staff couldn’t be more proud of how this group of young women came together as a team. Great work, ladies!

Bocce-
Finished up yesterday!

Bowling-
While the bowling teams (regular and Unified) finished up competition on Thursday, they received their awards this morning. The results are as follows:

Regulation team of Ryan Fant, Tiffany Johnson, Michael Lunceford and Tiffany Wright: 4^th place
Unified team of Amanda Geno, Lindsey Hawkins, Chris Miller and CJ O’Neal: Bronze

Flag Football-
Finished up yesterday!

Golf-
Finished up yesterday! Coach Ken Neff said he was proud of how the team finished up and was grateful for all of the support parents and families have shown for our athletes.

Powerlifting-
Finished up on Tuesday!

Tennis-
Finished up yesterday!

Volleyball-
Finished up yesterday and received their medals today.

Blog posts – 
“Its a bittersweet day as we get to the last day of USA games. It was another good night of sleep.  Brandon, Renee and I headed out to watch our girls basketball play for gold. There were lots of mo magic fans in attendance.”
See Rachel Antal’s (PR Assistant while at the 2014 USA Games) blog here.  

“The crowd was huge and loud for Team Missouri.”
See Linda Wiederholt’s (sports manager for powerlifting and tennis) blog here.

“It made me think about all of the people who have experienced Special Olympics for the first time this week. From the first-time volunteers, to the staff at the venues, to the bus drivers, and even the people we sat next to on the plane — we have spread the mission of Special Olympics far and wide this week. We have shown the nation that we are more alike than different; that our athletes are valuable members of society; that what really defines us is our character – not our IQ.”
See Mandi Steward Ballinger’s (sports manager for bowling) blog here.

See Jeremie Ballinger’s (Unified Partner in tennis) blog here.

Mobile App –
We hope that everyone enjoyed and took advantage of the mobile app this past week. Just remember that just because the Games are over, doesn’t mean the app is now going away. Still keep uploading your user photos to the photo gallery and be sure to look through all of the photos Rachel and Brandon took in the Flickr portion. The app doesn’t actually go down for another year, so be sure to keep using it as you’d like.

Videos –
Check out the video track and field athlete Danny Topete took while he was at Closing Ceremony!

Photo Galleries –
Photos from the sports and fun activities are available both on our Flickr account and on our Facebook page. They will be updated throughout the week so be sure to check in on a daily basis!