Megan Devencenzi getting healthier as OSU’s season progresses

By Kevin Hampton

Gazette-Times reporter

Megan Devencenzi’s season got off to a slow start.

Not that she’s complaining. Devencenzi, a junior on the Oregon State gymnastics team, was glad to be competing for the Beavers early on.

She injured her left shoulder during the summer while working out on the uneven bars.

Her season was in the balance. If she elected to have surgery, she might not get back in time to do the team much good. If she went ahead and competed, she could wind up struggling on her events, possibly suffering more damage and landing in surgery anyway.

She chose the knife.

Devencenzi figured she might only miss one or two meets and be able to be at full strength by the time the big events rolled around. Not only did she make it back, but she was in the lineup at Florida to start the season.

“I guess the biggest surprise for me this season is being able to compete earlier than I expected,” Devencenzi said. “I just wasn’t expecting to be in the lineup as soon as I was, but that was a nice treat and I was able to get excited about that.”

Competition, however, didn’t come easy at first. Devencenzi has been on the vault and floor for the Beavers, and while she was steady on floor, she scored 9.325 or lower four times on vault to start the season. It was rough going for a gymnast who has a career-best of 9.925 on the event.

The Beavers had a breakthrough meet as a team in a 196.650-196.375 win over UCLA on Feb. 16, but it wasn’t until the next week at Washington that Devencenzi broke through. She scored a 9.900 on vault and helped OSU score a 196.975.

Devencenzi added a 9.825 at Boise State the following Friday. Last week, she scored a 9.775 at Brigham Young.

She has provided key depth on both events for the Beavers at a time when the team is making a move toward landing a strong regional qualifying score.

Roommate Yuki Lamb said the Beavers knew Devencenzi would eventually start hitting her routines.

“There was no doubt in my mind,” Lamb said. “Even after the meets that she would maybe struggle a little bit, she would come back in and fix it and change it and get more numbers in.”

Devencenzi said she did a lot of mental preparation, visualizing her routines so she had the perfect execution etched into her mind.

“We also do what we call pressure sets where the entire team will all stop practice and we’ll all watch one person and that person is put into a meet situation,” she said. “That has helped a lot with confidence and knowing that I can do that in a high pressure situation.”

Devencenzi hails from Rohnert Park, Calif., a city many OSU gymnastics fans recognize as the hometown of Tanya Ricioli-Hebron.

Ricioli-Hebron was a role model for Devencenzi and inspired her to come to Oregon State.

“It definitely made me aware and it did have a pretty good influence on me coming here,” Devencenzi said. “I just know that just with talking with her that she always had good experiences here with the coaches and with the team and just the whole environment, how the team works and just their goals and everything.”

It didn’t hurt that both gymnasts were graphic design majors.

Devencenzi didn’t discover her artistic side until her senior year in high school.

“I was taking AP calculus and I did terribly on the first two tests, just failed them miserably, so I decided to drop the class,” she said. “The only class available at the time was a painting class and so I took that class and it ended up being really fun and I enjoyed it a lot and I ended up taking the animation class after that and just kind of got interested in art.”

She found out that OSU has a graphic design program and decided to pursue it.

Devencenzi was able to get some tips from Ricioli-Hebron.

“My freshman year in graphic design she was a really good mentor for me, helping me out, figuring out the program, how it works,” Devencenzi said.

She said she might go into advertising or marketing and won’t rule out coaching down the road. There’s plenty of gymnastics to be done in the meantime.

That’s exactly where Devencenzi wants to be.

“She absolutely loves this sport and is passionate about it,” Lamb said. “I don’t think there’s an outside factor that influences her, I think it’s just her heart and her desire and her want to be in here. She’s very team-oriented. She wants to do the best she can for the team.”