Gymnasts take home fifth place
Six Aggie gymnasts accomplished All-Western Athletic Conference honors Friday night at the Western Athletic Conference Championships in Boise, Idaho, as the team scored a 194.150 for fifth place.
The tournament was an exciting and close meet, USU head coach Ray Corn said, as the Ags were only eight-tenths of a point away from the WAC champions, 16th-ranked Boise State University.
“I’m extremely pleased with how the team competed, but, of course, I’m disappointed because we had to count a fall because it probably cost us three spots in placing for the total team effort,” Corn said. “I’m extremely pleased that we stood on the podium.”
BSU claimed the WAC title with a 194.925 mark, while San Jose State came in second with a 194.725, Southern Utah tallied a 194.575 and Sacramento State placed in fourth with a 194.275.
Aggie gymnasts’ best performance unexpectedly came from the balance beam, an event the Ags have been notorious for scoring low on the majority of this season.
The Ags took second on the beam, Utah State’s best placing of the night.
USU opened the meet on the bars, where they had to count a fall, Corn said.
“We started off weak, but we crawled our way back and made a game of it,” he said. “In terms of execution of our routines, it was the best we’ve done all year long.”
Utah State faltered on one event, the uneven parallel bars.
“It was the uneven bars that hurt (our team score and placement),” Corn said.
Junior Nicki Felley won second-team all-conference in the all-around with a 38.925 and also tallied a 9.800 on the balance beam, a season best performance for the Flower Mound, Texas, native.
“(Felley’s beam performance) was a near-perfect beam routine,” Corn said.
Freshman Jasmine Minion was second-team all-conference in the vault as she scored a 9.800, good for a tie for sixth, and senior Megan Tschida was first-team all-conference on the floor exercise.
Tschida notched a 9.925 on floor to tie for first with Boise State’s Hannah Redmon, who went on to win the all-around title.
Joining Tschida on the first-team all-WAC list was sophomore Heather Heinrich’s tie for third-place on beam, with a 9.825.
Felley, Minion, Heinrich and freshman Nicole Simoneau earned second-team honors.
For the third rotation, the Aggies found themselves at the bottom of the six-team standings at the halfway point of the meet.
Boise State led with a 98.175, followed by Sacramento State in second at 97.375, just ahead of Southern Utah’s 96.325 for third.
Cal State Fullerton was in fourth at 96.900, followed by San Jose State’s 96.700 in fifth and Utah State’s sixth-place 96.475 score.
USU migrated to floor for the fourth sequence, as senior Ana Rickard-Whitfield started things off with a 9.675, followed by Boone with a 9.800.
Minion later logged a 9.800, preceding a 9.700 from Felley, then Tschida completed the rotation with a season-best 9.925, USU’s highest score this season not only on floor but on a single event overall.
The Aggies notched a 48.900 as a team on floor, tied for the third-best posting of the year in the event.
The announcements for who qualified for the North Central Regional Meet on April 12 at Minneapolis, Minn., will be made this week. Several USU individuals are expected to be selected.
“I’m extremely pleased that the high scores on every event came in the last five meets,” Corn said. “It was just simply unfortunate that we were unable to replace the necessary six scores (to have qualified for regionals).”
-candice.sandness@aggiemail.usu.edu