The Arizona gymnastics team opened their regular season in McKale Center on Friday with a tri-meet victory against Texas Woman’s University and Utah State. Arizona came out on top with a final score of 194.025, followed by Utah State who scored a 191.600. Texas Woman’s University rounded out the meet with a score of 189.500.
The GymCats started off the meet on vault and earned a team score of 48.775 with help from freshman Heather Swanson who posted a high score of 9.850.
“I think the freshmen did well this meet, but there are a lot of improvements that we have to make,” senior Selynna Felix-Terrazas said.
Senior captain Krysten Howard started the second rotation on uneven bars with an Arizona Stick and ended with a score of 9.775. The GymCats finished the uneven bars with a score of 48.425. Felix-Terrazas earned the high score for the GymCats with a 9.825.
“It was a pretty good start and we got to test the waters a little bit,” Howard said. [It] was a good meet to build on for the rest of the season.”
Arizona was off balance going into the third rotation. They began the beam with falls and bobbles leaving them with their lowest score of the meet, a 48.000. Junior Madison Cindric helped the GymCats maintain their lead heading in to the fourth and final rotation with her personal score of 9.750.
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“Beam demonstrated how well this team can fight for things and demonstrates that we can go into any situation and we aren’t going to give up,” Howard said. “We know how to finish strong.”
The Cats finished the meet on the floor with dominant performances from sophomore Lauryn Mattson, junior Kennady Schneider and Cindric. All three posted high scores of 9.800. The team finished floor with the score of 48.825.
“There were some first meet jitters here and there across all the events,” said Arizona gymnastics head coach Tabitha Yim. “The thing that stood out to me the most is that they really fought and that’s something we talk about a lot.”
1996 Olympic Gold Medalist Kerri Strug attended the meet in support of the Arizona Wildcats.
“It was a real treat to have her join us tonight,” Yim said. “She is such an amazing gymnastics icon, not only for Tucson, but for the whole world.”
The GymCats will be on the road for their upcoming quad meet against Maryland, Minnesota and Alaska Anchorage in College Park, MD on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 2 p.m.
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