Arizona gymnastics will put its early perfect record to the test this weekend at No. 12 Stanford.
The No. 19 Gymcats (1-0) will face the Cardinal (5-0) and Sacramento State (2-4) on The Farm on Sunday.

“I’m really excited; we’re going up against Stanford and Sac State, and Stanford has a lot of talent,” junior Allison Flores said. “Sac State in the previous years [hasn’t] been as strong as this year, so it’ll definitely be an exciting meet to be in.”

UA head coach Bill Ryden said Stanford and Sacramento State are “both very good programs.”
“Certainly our big goal, since we’re a performance sport, is our performance has to be better,” Ryden said. “We’re going there looking to win, but the way we do that is we have to perfect our performance.”

Stanford is coming off of a meet where it beat then-No. 8 Georgia 196.325-196.150. It was the Cardinal’s first ever dual meet victory over the Gym Dogs.

Last week, Arizona beat Illinois-Chicago 194.750-190.000 and finished first in every event. Junior Kristin Klarenbach earned the highest score of the night, 9.9, on the floor exercise.

Senior Jordan Williams said last week was good for working out the jitters.

“It’s going to be a really good meet,” Williams said about the Stanford meet. “I think we’ve been there before; we’re really confident. This week we’ve worked really hard, so it’s just a matter of when we go out there and show them what we got.”

Ryden said the Gymcats are mostly healthy, though they lost junior Danielle Buchanan for the season, and senior Barbara Donaldson was injured last week in Chicago.

“All three of the seniors are just too vital,” Ryden said.

Stanford returned 11 gymnasts and lost two seniors from its 2013 squad, which finished sixth at the NCAA semifinals. SU added six freshman.

Last year, Stanford finished fourth in the Pac-12 and beat the Gymcats by less than a point in Tucson.

Sacramento State returns six seniors and adds four freshmen to a team that went 9-14 last year. The Hornets are coming off of a third place finish behind ASU and San Jose State in Tempe, Ariz.

Follow James Kelley @jameskelley520