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By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information

SEATTLE – The doctor's orders to Maria Hundley were very strict:
 
Don't do gymnastics. Don't even think about doing gymnastics.
 
So for three months during the winter of 2015 while she dealt with the lingering effects of a concussion, Hundley followed orders and didn't do gymnastics.
 
But think about it?
 
Oh, yeah … she did plenty of that.
 
Each afternoon.
 
In the gym.

 

"My only exercise was one walk a week – it was (driving me) insane," Hundley said. "So every day, I would do a mental set or two on each event. The power of visualization, I believe in so greatly.
 
"I honestly just tried my best to stay in the gym and support my teammates through it."
 
By mid-winter, the Seattle Pacific star was back in action. By early spring, she was back atop the awards podium, having successfully defended two of her three national championships.
 
Instead of seeing red – as in shirt – she got to see gold – as in medal – for the fourth and fifth times of her illustrious career.
 
"I think it was the fact that I stayed in the gym," Hundley said. "It was the fact that I stayed mentally strong throughout all of that. It was just my love and passion of gymnastics and this team, and I was able to pull it off."
 
That chapter now a year behind her, Hundley will try to pull it off one more time –maybe two or three more times – to wrap up her career and add to her collection of five national crowns when she and the Falcons head to St. Charles, Mo., for the USA Gymnastics Collegiate Championships.
 
Team semifinals and all-around competition are Friday in Lindenwood University's Hyland Arena. SPU, at nationals for the 34th time in the past 35 years, will compete at noon Pacific time in the first semifinal session. The second session is at 5:00 PDT.
 
The top two teams from each session return for team finals on Saturday at 5:00 Pacific. In addition, the top five on each of the four events from Friday's two sessions will qualify for the individual finals. Those are set for Sunday at 11:00 a.m. PDT.
 
Hundley, with back-to-back titles on the uneven parallel bars and balance beam, along with the 2014 vault championship, will compete on all four events at nationals. She added the floor exercise this season, thereby becoming an all-arounder. in fact, her 39.350 total on March 7 against the University of Washington, was a school record.

Last week in the NCAA Division I regionals at the University of Utah, the epicenter of D1 gymnastics, Hundley scored 9.775 on three events and 9.70 on the floor, all in front of 14,000 fans.

"I didn't even know what 14,000 people looked like," Hundley said, still somewhat awed by it all. "I walked in there, and it was like, 'Oh my gosh!' It was a real fun experience."

She's hoping for more of the same this weekend -- even though the crowd won't be quite that big..
 
"I've put in all the work, and I'm ready. There's no need to overstress about it," Hundley said. "As a team, we have the best potential (in my four years) to win a national title. Every single year, we've been so close."
 
"We're definitely capable," she added. "I'm just really hoping we can pull through and peak at the right time."
 
TWO-WAY RISK, TWO-WAY REWARD
Call it gut instinct. Following a hunch. A leap of faith.
 
Hundley, a native of Littleton, Colo., hadn't seen Seattle. And longtime coach Laurel Tindall, the architect of SPU's national-caliber program, hadn't seen much video of Hundley.

 

Ultimately, that didn't keep them from committing to each other.
 
"Through high school, I had a lot of injuries," Hundley said. "I was searching for somewhere that would take me. I got accepted at other schools, but not on their teams.

"I had an old friend, Aditi Kulkarni (a fellow Coloradan and a Falcon from 2009-12). She told me about SPU, and I contacted them," she continued. "They offered me a spot to do gymnastics.
 
"I'm really, really thankful that they were willing to take that risk."
 
Tindall is just as thankful, as Hundley has become the most decorated gymnast in the program's storied, national-caliber history.
 
 "We just felt like she had something to work with and had good basics," Tindall said. "She definitely had the skills, and she's very clean."
 
SLOWED HER, BUT DIDN'T STOP HER
When practicing on the vault one day in the fall of 2014, Hundley got too close to it before going airborne. While flipping over it, she hit her head.
 
Everyone took the necessary concussion precautions, and Hundley figured it wouldn't be long before she was right back in action.
 
Instead, it became three-month journey through the final weeks of 2014 and the first few weeks of 2015.
 
"I couldn't even do cardio," Hundley said. "I didn't think I was going to compete at all. I thought I would have to redshirt."

 

On Valentine's weekend of 2015, SPU headed south for a meet at rival UC Davis. Hundley came along, penciled in for the vault and the balance beam. She scored 9.575 on the former and 9.25 on the latter.
 
She wasn't fully back … but was on the way.
 
"It was definitely a work in progress," she recalled. "Since it was a concussion, I had issues of not being dizzy after doing a lot of flips – doing a flip on a four-inch beam is an issue if you're dizzy. I went to a therapist to get back my sense of air awareness."
 
That's a very keen sense, and Tindall says Hundley has more of it than most gymnasts.
 
"She has a catlike ability to right herself when she's a little bit off on the beam," Tindall said. "She just has an instinct that she's a little off, and she's already correcting it before it causes her to fall. As soon as she lands, she's making that adjustment."
 
LIKE SHE'D NEVER BEEN AWAY
By the time the Falcons flew off to Philadelphia for nationals, Hundley was back in full force. In the team semifinals, she was among the overall top three scorers on the vault, bars, and beam. In the next day's team finals, she had the Falcons' best score on vault (9.80) and bars (9.825) to help secure a second straight third-place team trophy.
                                                                                          
Then in the individual finals, Hundley scored 9.875 on the bars and 9.90 on the beam to capture both crowns.
  All that after missing multiple months of workouts.
 
But Falcons assistant coach Carly Dockendorf, whom Hundley credits with helping her develop a better mental approach, wasn't surprised.
 
"I think it was a testament to both her athleticism and her mental strength to literally do nothing for months, then come back and within weeks, really put together routines that were national championship caliber," Dockendorf said. "As coaches, we've given her some tools. But Maria has been successful because she is probably one of the most determined, persistent people that I know."
 
Part of that mental approach, says Hundley, is just keeping it all in perspective.
 
"I never go into nationals thinking about individual performance," she said. "I just went out there trying to do my best for the team's sake. No nerves – just have fun that last day. I don't think I allowed myself to think that I had won it before. It's a new arena, a new year, and a new meet."
 
EAGERLY ANTICIPATING THE NEXT STEP
Any gymnast coming this far and doing the sport this long knows that the end is coming. Most welcome it – or least their bodies do.

 

The 22-year-old Hundley, who started gymnastcs at age 4 and has done it for the 18 years since then, feels that way … sort of. Still, it'll be tough saying goodbye to what has been a huge part of her life, and she teared up a little during the team's Senior Night ceremony on March 7.
 
"I have two more practices left, and then I'll never do a backflip again," she said with a laugh earlier this week. "I'm still having fun … but I'm ready to be done."
 
Academically, Hundley is already done, finishing her psychology degree during the winter quarter with a sterling 3.69 grade-point average. Her next goal is a master's in social work, and she already has been accepted into the Teach America program, with an assignment in Louisiana beginning in 2017. Later this spring, she's going to Europe for the first time, touring Spain and Italy.
 
All of that is on hold for at least another few days.
 
"I'm just trying to take it one minute at a time, and be in that moment, and enjoy every moment from now until Sunday night," she said.
 
After that, Maria Hundley likely will never do gymnastics again – even without doctor's orders.
 
But no doubt she'll be thinking about it.