SEATTLE – In the final regular season meet of the year the BYU women’s gymnastics team came away with a score of 195.250 and a second-place finish vs. Washington and Seattle Pacific on Friday night at Alaska Airlines Arena.
Washington won the tri-meet with a season-high score of 196.625 and Seattle Pacific finished in third with 193.150.
BYU finished the regular season with its seventh meet above 195 in 2013 and fifth in a row.
The National Collegiate Women’s Gymnastics Committee will conduct selections for the 2013 NCAA National Collegiate Women’s Gymnastics Championships March 24-25. The Cougars are in a good position to likely earn an NCAA regional berth and will wait to see their destination for competition on April 6.
We scored really, really well on three events but struggled on beam," head coach Brad Cattermole said. "Bars, vault and floor were great but we had some falls on beam and the girls tightened up and that's never good. We had some really good performances with Haylee [Rollins] on bars and Megan [Bain] on floor. I think several girls had career bests overall."
The Cougars started on bars and put up a season-best 49.075, led by a career-high 9.925 routine from Haylee Rollins, winning the event at the meet. Every gymnast in the lineup for BYU scored at least a 9.700 and Raquel Willman and Megan Bain posted a 9.825 and 9.800, respectively.
Having to count a fall on the balance beam took its toll on the team score in the second rotation with a 47.850 on the event. Makenzie Johnson led the Cougars with a 9.750 and Summer Raymond picked up a 9.700.
"We would have liked to have done better on beam and I thought we had every opportunity," Cattermole said. "They warmed up well and I thought we'd be okay but we just struggled a bit. We just have to get to a point where we are doing it like we know we can."
The team needed a big score on the floor to make up ground and the Cougar gymnasts delivered with a season-high 49.250. No gymnast scored lower than a 9.800. Bain put up her best score of her career with a 9.900, Rollins tied her career high with a 9.875 and Willman set a new personal best with a 9.875 of her own. Johnson, Eliane Kulczyk and Jordan Schult all posted 9.800's, a career best for Schult.
The vault was a solid finish for BYU, scoring a 49.075. Willman’s vault resulted in a 9.850 to tie a career best, while Kulczyk added another 9.850. Johnson and Rollins both scored matching 9.800’s and Bain picked up a 9.775 to round out BYU’s scoring.
Johnson finished third in the all-around competition with a total score of 39.100.
BYU will now have three weeks to rest up and prepare for the NCAA regional meet on April 6.