The Oregon State Beavers gymnastics team came up after a slow start on vault and managed a tie of 197.375 over #7 California Golden Bears on Friday.

This is the second straight tie against a top ten team and head coach Tanya Chaplain’s fifth career tie. This tie over the Golden Bears has pushed the Beavers to achieve a new season high overall score.

“We are accomplishing our goal every meet of just getting better,” said Jade Carey post meet.

The Beavers previously tied a top 10 ranked team, UCLA, during an away meet, so to be at home with Cal granted them more of a chance to get a new season high overall score.

Starting up on vault the Beavers got up to a steady start that gave them an overall score of 49.075. Sophomore Natalie Briones started off for the Beavers and scored a 9.825. A strong first score up on the board.

Up next was sophomore Kaitlin Garcia who scored a 9.750. This led the next two gymnasts, sophomore Lauren Letzsch and junior Sydney Gonzales, with 9.750 and 9.7750 for the Beavers.

All three of them had skillful vaults, but a key performance stunner that they unfortunately lacked was managing to stick their landing on their vaults. However, never count the Beavers out.

Each California Golden Bears gymnast managed to score 9.9 on bars in the meantime. This gave them a strong start to the meet that gave them an overall score of 49.550.

“We noticed after vault that those were not our usual scores and we were able to just pick it up from there,” said sophomore Natalie Briones in the press conference after the meet.

Next up was bars for the Beavers. Sophomore Carley Beeman started for the Beavers and stuck her landing and put a 9.850 on the board. Freshman Ellie Weaver was up next as she had a clean routine, but minorly put one foot back on her landing and scored a 9.800. Freshman Francesca Caso also scored a 9.800 right after Weaver.

Jennifer Mcmillan faced some complications with her routine as she scored a 9.500, the team’s lowest. This was not the score the Beavers needed if they wanted to beat the Bears, but never count the Beavers out.

Natalie Briones and Jade Carey pull it together for the team and contribute 9.900 and 9.500 to the board to come up with the third best overall event score of the evening.

Second to last was beam, where the Beavers all produced pretty routines, while minorly stumbling on their dismounts. Graduate Kristina Peterson started off for the Beavers with a 9.800 on the board, which was the lowest score they came up with on beam.

Jenna Domingo and Madi Dagen scored a 9.850, while sophomore Lauren Letzsch, Sydney Gonzales, and Jade Carey came up with scores of 9.900 for both Letzsch and Gonzales and Carey with a 9.950.

Lastly was floor with freshman Savannah Miller starting off with her famously known Billie Eilish routine.

“She (Savannah Miller) is going to go out and she’s going to feel unstoppable once she steps out on the floor. She’s tough, she fights for everything…She has an aurora when she steps out and I think she relaxes the team. That is why it is good to have her start,” said Head Coach Tanya Chaplin in the press conference after the meet.

Ariana Young pulled up with a 9.850 and Sydney Gonzales did the same. Lauren Letzsch came up with the lowest of the scores on floor with a 9.650, while she stumbled a little bit, but had a skillful routine overall.

Madi Dagen and Carey gave the performance the Beavers needed to spoil the Golden Bears straight 9 wins. Dagen scores a 9.900 and Carey scores a 9.950. This was just enough for the Beavers to result in a tie.

“It feels great to have a performance like we did tonight….we did exactly what we know how to do,” said Jade Carey in the press conference after the meet.

The Beavers next face University of Arizona Wildcats at Gill Coliseum Saturday, Feb. 18th at 12:30 p.m.