The gymnastics team scored high, but placed low at the ECAC Championships.
The ECAC Championships, hosted at Penn last Saturday, was the Bulldogs’ last meet of the season. The team placed seventh, with a score of 191.45, finishing 2.95 points behind Penn, the top ranked team at the meet. This was a season-high score for the Elis, and the highest the team has earned in four years. The Bulldogs counted no falls towards their overall score.
“The standings mean nothing to us,” said Mia Yabut ’12 the captain of the team, “It’s not even a mixed bag for us, it was a good way to end.”
Although Yale placed last at ECAC’s, the season as a whole was an improvement from last year. Head coach Barbary Tonry said the team posted consistently higher scores throughout the season, and team members Yabut and Tara Feld ’13 said they are enthusiastic about these advances.
“Yale gymnastics is on an upward trend,” Feld said.
The final meet of the season began, for Yale, on beam. Maren Hopkins ’14 was the first competitor of the day, and performed her routine without a mistake and earned a 9.425. Yabut said this “set the tone for the entire meet.”
Yale went on to have only one routine with a fall on this event, which did not count towards the team score, and several standout performances. Stephanie Goldstein ’13 and Joyce Li ’15 were Yale’s top two finishers on the event, scoring a 9.65 and 9.725 and placing 11th and sixth respectively.
Scoring on the next event, floor, caused some raised eyebrows from members of the team. The team scored a total of 47.325 points for the event, which is lower than 47.780, the Elis’ average score on floor this year, even though nobody on the team fell.
“We don’t feel that our score or our placement reflects the way the team performed,” Feld said.
Feld was the highest scorer on the event for the Bulldogs with a 9.600, whereas Feld’s average score for floor is 9.745. A highlight of the event was Goldstein’s routine, which contained different tumbling than she usually competes, including a double pike in her first tumbling pass and a double back tuck in her third pass. The routine earned her a 9.575.
The Bulldogs finished strong on vault and bars. Yabut, who competed a laid-out Yurchenko half and earned Yale’s top vault score of 9.675, said the Elis looked “powerful” on vault.
“I’m still not sure sure why our scores were so low, but they did a good job,” Tonry said.
Bars for the Bulldogs, who struggled with consistency this season, earned the team its highest event score of 48.325. The top competitor for Yale was, once again, Lindsay Andsager ’13, who scored a 9.725. After struggling on bars in recent meets, this rotation was a great way to end the meet and the season, Feld said.
Yale gymnastics has its sights set on next year. The team hopes to gain four new freshman, and loses only two seniors. Tonry added that the team should be stronger next year.
As for Yabut, the end of her gymnastics career is still a bit “surreal,” she said.
“If I was going to end this is the best way I could have done it,” Yabut said.
At ECAC Championships, Goldstein, a molecular, cellular and developmental biology major, won the ECAC Scholar-Athlete Award. Morgan Traina ’15 was named ECAC Rookie of the Year.
Contact monica disare at