Gymnastics: SPU on the Way to San Jose for Dual Meet The Seattle Pacific gymnastics team hits the road for the next two weekends, beginning on Friday, Jan. 20 at San Jose State.
Photo Courtesy: www.spufalcons.com - Texie Gregory won the bars title in SPU's season opening meet.
The Seattle Pacific gymnastics team hits the road for the next two weekends, beginning on Friday, Jan. 20 at San Jose State. The dual meet against the NCAA Division I hosts starts at 7 p.m. at Spartan Gym in San Jose, Calif. That will be the first road competition of for the Falcons, who opened the 2012 campaign with a home win on Jan. 13. The SPU gymnasts travel to California again next week for a Jan. 27 tri-meet at UC Davis that also involves California Berkeley. The Falcons next home meet is Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. against Air Force.
Live Scoring
There is no webcast for Friday's meet, but a webpage of scores with be updated periodically throughout the meet at: www.SJSUspartans.com You will need to manually refresh the page repeatedly to receive the updated scores.
Friday's Foe
NCAA Division I member San Jose State is ranked No. 19 nationally after registering a second-place score of 194.300 on Sunday in the NorCal quad meet at Stanford. That was the highest season-opening score in Spartans history. SJSU's Thomasina Wallace won the all-around with a mark of 39.150. SPU ranks 55th among all college teams (188.425) in the rankings that are dominated by Division I squads. The Falcons are rated No. 6 among teams that will vie for the USA Gymnastics collegiate championship.
Recent Recap
Stephanie Wagner won two events and freshman Sydney Clark claimed the all-around championship, helping Seattle Pacific beat Wisconsin-La Crosse in the season-opening dual meet Jan. 13 at Brougham Pavilion. SPU outscored the defending NCAA Division III champion Eagles 188.425-183.275. Wagner won the beam (9.650) and floor (9.625) and was second on the bars event (9.575) that was won by teammate Texie Gregory (9.675). Clark had a winning all-around total of 36.400 in her collegiate debut.
Quoting Coach Laurel Tindall
“It was a great opening score. It would have been nice to get a 190 to open, but this gives us somewhere to go. We saw a lot of good things and this gave us an opportunity to see what we need to work on. Competing against Division I teams only makes us look better. We want to go out on the floor and we want to look like we are in their league. We have some good enough routines that we can do that. It's different than any other sport in terms of win-or-loss doesn't really mean that much to us, although it's always nice to win a meet. It's really our score. We're looking at trying to better our score each week, trying to be consistent.”
Bridgeport Bound?
The season starts in Seattle. The Falcons hope it ends in Bridgeport, Conn., the site of the 2012 USA Gymnastics (USAG) Collegiate Championships, April 12-14. SPU is a perennial championship contender, qualifying for 29 of the last 30 national meets for NCAA Division II schools. Since 1982, the Falcons only missed
