While most kindergartners are thinking about memorizing their colors and shapes, senior Kimiye Narasaki was thinking about her future. This Hornet began her career in gymnastics shortly after getting out of her Pampers and by the age of 10 Narasaki was polishing her second place state championship trophy.

Narasaki made the climb to Sacramento State’s gymnastics team with many smooth transitions, like that of her flowing beam routines, with only one shaky moment. An apparatus like the beam can be very unforgiving. Three inches determines your fate, but it wasn’t the beam that did Narasaki in.

During her freshman year a Sac State, Narasaki joined the team on a roll and was selected to compete at the NCAA West Regionals at University of Washington. While she was warming up on vault Narasaki landed straight-legged crushing her meniscus (cartilage that lines the base of the knee as a shock absorber). Her postseason hopes ended before the competition even began.”It was surreal, it left me wondering what it could have been like,” Narasaki said.

The heart pounding rush of competing in front of hundreds of people was taken away from the senior, but she would slowly climb her way back to become the only Hornet to regularly compete in all four events.

The injury left Narasaki off the gym mats for almost 10 full months and required surgery. Doctors performed arthroscopic surgery; drilling two holes in her knee and sewed her damaged meniscus back together. After missing much of her sophomore season Narasaki was limited to competing on the uneven bars in just five meets. Now the 4-foot 10-inch senior is leading the charge for the 2006 season as co-captain for the Hornets.

Narasaki’s story is one of an uphill climb, Hornets head coach Kim Hughes said. “She’s aggressive and outgoing. She has no problem getting in athletes faces. She’s that kind of a captain.”

In 2005 she competed in every meet and steadily worked her way to getting back ontoh the floor and beam events. The vault was still a psychological mountain that needed to be conquered. Finally after 16 months of countless hours spent in the weight room before and after practice, hundreds of miles covered on the stationary bikes, Narasaki finally got back on the runway for her first vault in practice.

It was a feeling of relief and joy to finally get back to doing what I loved to do, Narasaki said. “I got a lot of my confidence back.”

Narasaki is sharing that confidence with the rest of the team as they are making their mark on a brand new conference. This year has been challenging for both the Hornets and their co-captain, Narasaki. After leaving the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and entering the Western Athletic Conference the Hornets are facing nationally competitive teams in every meet this year. Seven opponents are ranked within the top 30 teams in the nation.

Friday, the Hornets play host to the San Jose Spartans who are ranked sixth in the West Region, two spots ahead of Sac State. The Spartans hold a slim margin over the Hornets in total team average, not to mention these two are old rivals from the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The meet starts at 7 p.m.

Brad Alexander can be reached at [email protected]