The Wolfpack gymnastics team defeated fellow EAGL conference foe Pittsburgh 194.950-191.900 Saturday in Reynolds Coliseum. The 2,112 fans in attendance enjoyed a dominating performance by the Pack as it won each event as a team and took first and second place in the all around competition.
The Pack came into the meet with a score to settle after Pitt took home the regular season victory in both teams’ final regular season meeting last season in Pittsburgh, PA. The meet was the fourth consecutive one in which the Wolfpack did not count a single fall towards its overall total.
“Even on a day when we aren’t feeling perfect, we still didn’t count a fall. That is what we set out to do as one of our team goals for the season.” Stevenson said.
The Pack began strong during its first rotation on vault, which saw four gymnasts score above a 9.7. Most vault routines were solid as sophomore Brooke Barr, freshman Morgan Johnson and senior Taylor Seaman received first place honors on the event with scores of 9.775.
State finished beam with a team score of 48.75. On the other side of Reynolds, the Pittsburgh Panthers started their meet on the uneven bars and their team score after the first rotation was a 47.775. They had only one gymnast score a 9.7 or higher on the uneven bars.
The Pack took the early lead of a little under a point due to solid vault performances from all competitors.
In the second rotation, the gymnasts from State went to the uneven bars and found success. The team put together a couple of solid performances and a team score of 48.75, which matched their score from the previous rotation. Senior Taylor Seaman led the Pack on the uneven bars with a meet high score of 9.85. Freshman Rachel Fincham scored a 9.8 and junior Brittany Vontz tallied a 9.775.
On the Pittsburgh side, the Panthers competed on vault and put up an enviable performance on vault as they had two gymnasts score above a 9.7. They scored a 48.350 overall as a team on the event.
“I thought we did a very nice job overall on bars,” head coach Mark Stevenson said. “We only had a few little mistakes on bars, but I was happy with how we did.”
The Wolfpack moved to balance beam for its third rotation and the Pack looked to continue its solid performances from the previous two rotations. The team was not rewarded for its beam work and scored its lowest event total of the night with 48.475, about three tenths lower than their first rotations.
“Beam was phenomenal and was by far our best event on the day.” Stevenson said. “Unfortunately we weren’t rewarded in our scores on the event like I thought we should have been.”
The Wolfpack suffered a major scare as senior Taylor Seaman landed wrong on her dismount off the beam and had to forgo her final rotation on the night, the floor exercise, with an injured ankle. Pitt had its best event score of the evening on floor.
In the final rotation the Pack gymnasts didn’t let the injury to Seaman get to them as they went out and nailed their floor routines. All five scores counted on floor exercise were above 9.7.
Sophomore Brooke Barr turned in an explosive performance on floor with a 9.85 to lead all gymnasts in the meet. Others contributing to the team score of 48.975 were sophomore Jess Panza, with a score of 9.825, and junior Brittany Vontz, who stepped up in Seaman’s absence to post a 9.725 on floor.
“Floor was kind of a surprise for me because I didn’t expect to do it when the meet began,” Vontz said.
In all-around competition, Vontz won first place with a final score of 38.95 and sophomore Brooke Barr secured second place with a score of 38.925.
The Wolfpack travels to William and Mary to begin a string of three away meets that will pitt the Pack against EAGL foe New Hampshire and perennial powerhouse Georgia.
The Pack will return to Reynolds Coliseum in a little less than a month to take on William and Mary in its last home meet of the season on March 19.
Freshman Rachel Fincham said the Wolfpack has plenty to take away from this meet and the lessons learned will serve the team well as it prepares to hit the road.
“The away meets are very important for our overall RQS and we just need to sharpen some things for the next meet,” Fincham said.
