USU gymnastics falls by one-tenth to BYU

Despite scoring a season-high 196.100, Utah State fell to rival BYU, who scored 196.200, in the Aggies’ first home meet in nearly a month.

The score was the ninth-most in program history — sixth most at home — and was fueled by season highs in vault (49.100) and bars (48.925). Three personal career-highs were set, two in vault, one in bars. The Aggies also posted their third-highest score on floor routine (49.125) and beam (48.950).

“It was solid across the board,” said head coach Amy Smith. “It wasn’t out absolute best, but we got the job done.”

The two 49+ scores were the ninth and tenth times USU has scored 49 or more as a team and just the second time this year they had two in one meet.

Mikaela Meyer, fresh off her first Specialist of the Week award in vault, set a career-high for the second time in two weeks with an 9.875 — second overall in the meet.

“I just thought about being as tight as possible, threw my hips flat and then the landing just came with it,” Meyer said of her Yurchenko Full vault routine.

Faith Leary took first overall in vault by smashing her previous career best of 9.775 with a 9.900. She also took second in floor with a 9.850.

“Vault was awesome,” Smith said. “Mikaela and Faith have been working on sticking [their landings] this week so to see them put it in play like that was amazing and I think that just ignited everything.”

Sophomore Jazmyn Estrella returned after missing three-straight meets due to a concussion to post a new career-high of 9.875, a major factor in the team’s higher bars score. But even with the higher score, USU was outscored by two-tenths in that event as the Cougars had their second-best bars score of the season (49.175).

Estrella said the team is capable of “so much more” than the season-high score with some small fixes.

“Just little things,” Estrella said. “We didn’t have all out sticks, we didn’t have all our handstand, little things that we missed that put in points easily.”

Overall, the loss was bittersweet. It was disappointing because of the loss to BYU but encouraging because of the high score. Smith said the team has “more in the tank” heading into a four-team meet next Friday at BYU.

With the loss, Utah State fell to 6-7 on the year and is 1-3 in Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference meets.