Gymnasts top Gustavus Adolphus Friday night

Energy in McPhee Physical Education Center carries Blugolds

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Photo by Meghan Hosely

Story by Meghan Hosely, Online Editor

For the first time this semester, the Blugold gymnastics team hosted a home meet Friday night in McPhee Physical Education Center; their second home meet this season. The Blugolds competed against Gustavus Adolphus College (Minn.) and handily won, 185.925 to 178.300.

The gymnasts swept the top three spots in three of the four events Friday in the uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. Junior Liz Stubbs was claimed first in both the balance beam and floor exercise, scoring 9.350 and 9.675, respectively.

Freshman Bailey Peter took first place in the uneven bars, scoring a 9.375. Four of her teammates followed suit in the same event.

Although the Blugolds didn’t come out with a first place finish for the vault event, they claimed the second through fifth spots in the event.

Head coach Jean DeLisle said there was nothing negative she could find about Friday’s meet.

“It was just positive,” she said. “Starting out on vault, and then just carrying that through everything was amazing. The energy was high, the crowd was fantastic.”

DeLisle said the fans in the crowd also helped motivate and her squad fed off the energy.

Junior captain Kellie Dougherty said while not everything was perfect, her and her teammates picked everyone back and kept pushing through.

“I don’t think we counted more than … one fall,” Dougherty said. “We had a couple errors here and there, but nobody gave up, they kept the energy up and it was fun.”

DeLisle said the energy her squad created Friday night is enough to carry them through the next few weeks. Next Friday, the Blugolds travel to La Crosse to face UW-La Crosse and Hamline University (Minn.). The following meet is the final home meet for the gymnastics team as they go up against UW-Stout.

The meet against Stout is the last one until the Regional meet, hosted by Hamline University.

Before then, however, DeLisle said she hopes to continue building her women’s confidence levels.

“We’re really trying to work on quality instead of quantity,” she said. “That’s one thing we’re trying to … at this point in the season.”