Women’s gymnastics had its last dual meet in West Chester, Pennsylvania before it will host the Gymnastics East Conference Championships in Newman Arena on Saturday, March 21st.
Cornell lost with a total score of 190.500.
Cornell started off shaky on the uneven bars. Sophomore Ava Schenck-Davis suffered a serious fall that cut her routine short, resulting in a score of 6.875. Head coach Melanie Hall felt that this was a large reason why the team did not do its best on the event.
“It started out really rough on bars. [Ava] had a pretty serious fall. Luckily she’s going to be okay,” Hall said. “She’s going to be really sore, but it kind of shook everybody up.”
Immediately after, junior Addy Rothstein followed, taking another awkward fall and committing multiple faults during her routine. Rothstein finished with a score of 8.175 contributing to the total team score of 46.050, the lowest this whole season.
Hall believed that although the team’s performance was not amazing on bars, the Red could still contribute solid scores on all other events.
“The conversation was really like, ‘okay we’re done with bars, we can bring it back together and move on.’” Hall said. “The vault was great. Overall, all of our vaulters did a fantastic job.”
The Red finished with a total score of 48.000 on vault. Rothstein was the leadoff for the event and despite her performance on bars, she posted a strong score of 9.550. Once again, senior Cami Whitaker had the highest score of 9.775 with freshman Grace McLean following with a 9.625.
Cornell moved onto the floor exercise, one of its stronger events. Sophomore Sarah Goetter and junior captain Josie Moylan finished with the team’s highest scores with a 9.875 and a 9.825 respectively. The floor exercise ended up as the Red’s highest scoring event with a 48.475.
Cornell finished its meet with the balance beam, one of the typically lower scoring events for the team. Instead, it received one of its highest scores of the season, 47.875. McLean secured the team’s top score with a 9.675.
Freshman Lauren Golioto obtained the second highest score with a 9.600. This is only Golioto’s third meet on the beam lineup.
Hall believed that the team did not feel the pressure going into its last event of the night.
“I think with beam being last.. knowing that we had nothing to lose,” Hall said. “I think the mindset going in was like, ‘okay this is the last event, we’re going to show up, we’re going to hit [it], and we’re going to move on.”
With all four events, Cornell finished with a total score of 190.500, losing the dual meet to West Chester University.
The Red still have a lot to look forward to for next weekend. The team will be hosting the GEC Championship, an important final meet of the season.
“Everybody’s really excited. We locked up a spot in the evening session…which is the first time we’ve actually competed in the evening session in four years,” Hall said.
The GEC Championship has two different sessions: the morning and the evening. It is better to be in the second session rather than the first to know what scores you need to have to place well in the given events.
A team’s placement in either the morning or evening session is determined by the total of all final scores throughout the season. Teams with higher scores are placed in the evening session and those with lower scores compete in the morning.
Bridgeport, SCSU, West Chester and William and Mary will compete in the morning session while Penn, Brown, Yale and Cornell will compete in the evening.
“The mindset going into this week is just focusing on the small details and getting ready for Saturday.” Hall said.
The Red’s last competition of the season is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Saturday at Newman Arena.
