Arizona gymnastics hosted No. 8 Utah this weekend and came up short, scoring 196.075 to Utah’s 196.600. Despite losing, it’s the Wildcats’ highest score so far this season.
Aubree Cristello tied Georgia Dabritz from Utah for first place on the uneven parallel bars with 9.875.
Molly Quirk also tied a Ute for second, posting 9.850. Cristello and Quirk came through again in the second to last event on balance beam. Cristello placed second and Quirk placed third.
Jordan Williams tied for third overall on floor with 9.850.
The Wildcats improved from last weekend in the vault event, scoring 48.900 and Allison Flores led with a score of 9.800.
“She’s such a competitor,” Arizona head coach Bill Ryden said of Flores. “She brings the crowd in, she gets the team pumped up.
“She’s one of those people you can’t do without, he continued. “She’s one of those people that makes the team better because she always starts us out on a high note.”
Arizona performed better moving into the bars competition, posting 49.150. This was the closest scoring of the two teams of the night.
Many of the routines were flawless, without an inch of movement on the landings.
Flores started off strong on bars earning 9.825.
Beam is where Utah faltered and Arizona kept its composure. The Wildcats stayed consistent and scored first in beam with a 48.975.
Shelby Edwards had another unfailing no-arm routine with a solid stick.
Williams led the team with a 9.850 post for the floor event.
Cristello stepped out of bounds for the second week in a row which took a tenth off her score of 9.750.
Ryden said the night continued to have a “consistent problem with the last of the line-up.”
Despite Cristello’s sub-par performance, she still placed second overall for the competition and Williams placed third.
Looking forward to taking the team to Washington this next weekend, Ryden said he’s keeping a positive mindset.
“The thing about losing is we are compared to every other team in the country every time we compete,” he said.
“So even though we lost here, we may have the second highest score in the country this weekend. We know we are still doing well nationally, this is just a blip in the road.”
Arizona will compete against Washington Friday at 7 p.m.
