Timing is always of the essence.
For the first time in the Arizona women’s gymnastics team career, the squad participated in two collegiate meets in one weekend.
Despite the light-hearted pop music of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera that filled McKale center Friday night, the Gymcats came to their first meet of the weekend ready to put in some work.
They would go on to record their first win of the season, beating Brown and Wisconsin-Stout after posting a season-high total score of 195.700.
The Gymcats pulled in season-high scores in vault, beam and the floor routines but still struggled on the bars.
Having scored 49’s in three of the four events, UA head coach Bill Ryden had one goal heading into Texas for the second meet of the weekend.
“”All we need is to throw together a complete meet,”” he said. “”We would have been sniffing a 197 tonight had we hit on bar.””
Memorable performances on Friday came from redshirt junior Sarah Tomczyk and freshman Rebecca Cardenas who both scored 9.925’s on floor, followed closely by senior Beamer Bergeson and freshman Britnie Jones’ 9.90 on beam.
“”To be honest, I was actually trying to find out where the deduction even was on Beamer’s routine,”” said UA assistant coach Colleen Johnson. “”Because to me, it was absolutely flawless.””
Overall, the vault team did a very good job as well, pulling in a group score of 49.275 in the event.
Coming off their first win, the ladies had only one night before heading to Dallas to take on Texas Woman’s University. The squad received some much-needed down time while visiting freshman Katie Matusik’s family near the competition location in Texas on Saturday.
Sunday would mark the Gymcats second win of the season, as they would reel in 195.425 points to beat TWU.
“”We put in a very productive two days of competition, and that’s just what we needed,”” Ryden said as he and the team was boarding their flight back to Tucson. “”We finally put together our complete meet in Texas.””
Arizona took all four events in Texas including an All-Around win by senior Alexis Greene with a score of 39.025.
“”Everyone did their job,”” Greene said Sunday. “”It was really tough having two meets, but it was a great weekend for our team.””
Ryden was excited with the team’s performance on Sunday, as he noted many of the individual performances that led to the team victory.
Greene scored a 9.90 on bars, Tomczyk scored a 9.90 on floor and three Gymcats – Matusik, Jones and Bergeson – tied for first place on beam.
“”Everyone hit everything today,”” said Tomczyk. “” We didn’t have to count any falls, which was awesome.””
This weekend marked a significant hurdle for the Gymcat team with the amount of work over the three-day period, but Arizona would come out on top.
“”These two wins were awesome for us”” Tomczyk said.”” We’re coming together as a great team and picking up at the perfect time in the season.””
