USU gymnastics falls to No. 16 Boise State
The USU gymnastics team hosted No. 16 Boise State Friday night at The Spectrum. The Aggies posted their second best score of the season while falling to the Broncos 196.625-195.150.
“We had a solid meet,” said Aggie head coach Amy Smith. “We made improvements tonight, and it was pretty solid across the board. Can’t complain about the performance.”
The night for Utah State was highlighted by the performance of freshman Autumn DeHarde. Posting a score of 9.925 on the floor exercise, DeHarde became the first Aggie gymnast to do so since Megan Tschida in 2008, and the score for her routine ranks 10th in program history.
“First of all, I just had fun,” DeHarde said. “Last week at previous meets I focused on landings and that kind of stuff. I just wanted to get out there and have fun today, and I think it really paid off.”
Utah State junior Madison Ward tied for second in the floor event with a 9.900, which marks the seventh time she has scored a 9.900 in her career.
As she was set to take the floor immediately following DeHarde’s performance, Ward said a bit of a playful competition arose within the team.
“I told (assistant coach) Whitnee (Johnson), ‘Oh I can’t let her beat me!’” Ward said. “But I think that’s fun, that competitive, just fun playfulness. It pushes me and I know it pushes the rest of the team as well.”
Freshman Faith Leary tied for fourth in the floor routine as well, with a 9.850 to add to the Aggies’ combined score of 49.075 in the event, a new season high.
Ward added to an already solid performance by placing third on the vault with a score of 9.850, a new career-high for the junior. Freshmen Faith Leary and Mikaela Meyer made big contributions as well, posting scores of 9.750 and 9.725 respectively.
“Vault was good,” Smith said. “It’s those little landings that we need to work on, but I feel like we’re getting there and it’s still the beginning of season.”
On Friday the team will be on the road attending a tri-meet hosted by UC Davis in Davis, Calif. Also attending the meet will be Sacramento State, who USU defeated this season in Logan. The next home meet for the Aggies will be March 2 when they host in-state rival BYU.
@lomeli_lauren