Gymnasts struggle with BYU
Tuesday was a disappointing night for the Utah State gymnastics team as it lost to No. 8 BYU, with its lowest meet score in more than two seasons, 190.600-194.125.
The team did manage a solid start, but it slowly declined, until the last rotation when the team somewhat recovered with their floor routines.
“It was certainty not what we had planned,” Utah State Head Coach Ray Corn said.
The team, in usual Olympic order, started the night on the vault. The good start allowed them to stay close behind BYU. That is, for the first rotation. The overall team vault score for USU was 48.400 to BYU’s 48.775. The team did well, making only minor mistakes while BYU experienced a fall.
Leaders on the vault included Freshman Jackie Fogli, Rachael Mandy and co-captain Rachel Ropelato, all with a score of 9.725. Corn said that the other teams had more difficult vaults because it was brought in with their recruits while USU had to teach their girls.
“I thought we vaulted extremely well,” Corn said. “[Although] we have to take it slow so that our people don’t get hurt on the floor of competition.”
Then came the bars.
Utah State made mistakes from dragging feet and taking steps on lands, to actually falling on the lands. After Megan Nelson fell back on her land, the whole team seemed to fall apart, or as Corn said, they fell apart. He said it was the inverted giants with the inverted grips that came back to haunt them. He added that changes had to be put in play for the next meet.
“It’s killing us,” he said about the inverted giant. “It’s killed us for the last three years.”
Changes he mentioned included changing the line-up, turning inverted giants into conventional giants and even just making routines easier for judges to identify the difficulty and the skills.
“A lot of things that usually don’t happen, even during practice, happened,” Ropelato said about the teams luck on the bars. “When that happens it’s hard to recover from that because it’s never happened.”
co-captain Alex Martin and all-arounder Megan Tschida led the way on the uneven bars. Martin with a 9.7 and Tschida with a 9.625, making the overall team score 46.400, the lowest in three seasons.
The team then moved on to the beam. Tshida, Ashley Barr and co-captain Katie Rutherford all scored 9.5s. The teams overall score was 47.050, once again the lowest since 2002, making the score 141.850- 145.325 in favor of BYU.
The team has two ill gymnasts. Liesel Kohler was not able to compete any of her usual events, the vault and floor, because of recent migranes that are believed to be caused by a concusion. Jessica Parenti was unable to compete because she is sick.
“Team members better realize that we can’t wait around for Parenti and Kohler to come back,” Corn said. “They have to step it up.”
The final rotation was the best for Utah State. They scored a 48.750, for their best scoring event of the night. Ropelato and Martin lead the way, while Fogli got a career high of 9.750.
The final meet scores came to 190.6- 194.125. Utah State will take on Southern Utah on Feb. 8, for their next meet.
vramirez@cc.usu.edu
Ashley Barr competes in the floor exercise Tuesday night in the Spectrum. USU lost to the Cougars 194.125-190.6. (Photo by John Zsiray)