No. 13 Arizona gymnastics took first place in its third quad meet of the season Saturday, scoring 195.800. The finish was the Wildcats’ first win of the season, competing against No. 25 BYU who placed second, Texas Woman’s University who came in third and Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater.
The Wildcats took first place in every event except bars, where BYU placed first and scored 48.675. Arizona improved greatly with the vault this week, earning .45 higher than last week’s score, which cost them a win against Stanford.
Arizona started off the evening on bars where it struggled with dismounts. It posted a 48.550, securing second place, but failed to match last week’s bar performances. BYU topped Arizona posting a 48.675 and its two gymnasts, Raquel William and Haylee Rollins, placed first and second overall on bars. Aubree Cristello, who won the all-around last week, placed fourth and Danielle Buchanan completed the top five.
Arizona head coach Bill Ryden said he wasn’t pleased with the start of the meet.
“I’m not going to make any excuses,” Ryden said. “That’s just us not being as good as we need to be, to be real honest. We expect more from ourselves, and everyone has to start somewhere right? We just have to get better at it so next week when we are back starting on vault again, our improvements that we made this week will show up on next week’s vault.”
The team quickly turned things around once moving to beam. They scored 49.000, a team season-high for the event. Cristello took first overall with a 9.850 and her teammates Jordan Williams, Amber Womba and Molly Quirk all posted 9.800, tying for second place.
The floor event was another of the Wildcats’ best. Kristin Klarenbach snatched the win for the second week in a row with a 9.900, Williams followed in second posting 9.875 and Allison Flores and Shana Sangston tied for third, with a score of 9.825. Cristello faltered and stepped out of bounds on her routine, but the team still managed a 49.150.
The domination continued into the last event — the vault team earned a 49.100, whereas last week, they failed to stick landings consistently. Cristello won overall with 9.925 and Williams came in second earning 9.875. Flores tied with gymnasts from Texas Woman’s and BYU for fifth place.
“We really worked on our control and the things that help that, like how much air time, how high you go and stuff that really helps that way,” Ryden said, referring to the vault team.
Arizona dominated the all-around scores once again. Cristello took first in all-around posting a 39.150, Flores took second with 38.975, William from BYU placed third and Williams rounded up the all-around for Arizona in fourth.
This Friday, Arizona will host No. 15 Utah at 7 p.m.
