OSU overcomes rough warmups en route to new season best team score

Oregon State gymnastics welcomed No. 17 University of Washington to Gill Coliseum on Sunday afternoon for the team’s final regular season Pac-12 meet. The Beavers prevailed 197.325-196.450.

Sunday’s score is the second time in as many weeks that Oregon State earned more than a 197. The high score was a result of a good team effort.

“There were good performances on every event,” said head coach Tanya Chaplin. “I don’t think there was one event more than the other, but all the way across the board they really did a good job. There were highlights and there were some rough edges here and there. What was good to see is [the team] kept fighting and didn’t let a mishap or a missed routine prevent them from going out and finishing strong and making the rest of the routines count.”

Warm ups in gymnastics are for getting the body moving, getting used to the equipment and focusing up for the coming meet.

“Honestly, our warmup wasn’t the best,” said senior Kaytianna McMillan. “We went down [to the locker room] and we completely flipped it. We came back up and we were ready to rock and roll. That feeling of being unstoppable is incredible. You feel fearless.”

Chaplin noticed the lack of execution in warm ups and addressed the team prior to the start of competition. With the team grouped, coach said it brutally: we’ve got to figure this out, if we keep going like this, we’re not gonna do well.

It’s safe to say the team figured it out.

“We managed a season high, and still haven’t had a perfect meet,” said redshirt senior Erika Aufiero. “It’s really nice knowing that we can still do better than that.”

With the national rankings becoming more and more important as the season progresses, being better is the goal, especially considering post-season competition is just around the corner.

“From the gymnast’s perspective, We can only control our gymnastics,” said Aufiero. “We can’t control our scores. We can’t control what the judges give us. We can’t control what the other teams are doing.”

The gymnasts let the coaches deal with rankings and they choose to focus on improvement.

“Every meet getting better is just us working harder in the gym, knowing what we’re going after, and really expecting greatness,” said senior Madeline Gardiner.

Peaking at the right time, the Beavers are becoming the team they want to be as they approach the end of the season.

“I think this is the team that we are.” said senior Kaytianna McMillan. “I think it’s finally showing. Our hard work week after week is really paying off, it’s coming out in competition and is becoming the new normal.”

McMillan set a personal record in the All-Around scoring 39.625 with help from her even winning score of 9.925 on floor.

Junior Dani Dessaints set a personal record on balance beam scoring 9.950 and tied for first place in the event with her teammate Madeline Gardiner.

Aufiero set a personal record on the uneven parallel bars scoring 9.975 and won the event.

Gardiner tied a personal record on vault scoring 9.900 and tied the event with Washington’s Haley Roy.

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