COMPLETE RESULTS | PHOTO GALLERY
ST. PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus gymnastics team dropped its home opener Saturday to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater by a score of 188.275-181.725. Alex Kopp (Sr., Wayzata, Minn.) highlighted the Gusties by winning the beam with a score of 9.625 and the all-around at 37.700.
“It was an overall solid outing for the team,” Head Coach Aryn DeGrood said. “We made some good improvements on vault and floor. There was a lot of fight out of the team today, which was needed and will play a good role in building the team score in upcoming meets.”
UW-Whitewater was able to capture the top five scores on the bars, top three on floor, and top two on the vault, which catapulted the Warhawks to the dual victory.
“The entire vault line did what was asked of them to start out the meet, with many season and career high scores,” DeGrood said. “Bars was solid, there were improvements there we needed to see and more we can accomplish. Beam was shaky for us, that’s an area we can really improve on. We rebounded on floor and left it all out there.
“Individually, Alex Kopp had a great day on every event. Amanda Malo and Lauren Kershner had great vault and floor. There were many other great things that happened throughout the meet.”
Lauren Kershner (Sr., Marine, Ill.) had a strong showing on the vault with a career-high 9.475, while also posting a respectable 9.4 on the floor. Sam Ardy (So., Thousand Oaks, Calif.) tallied a 9.3 on beam, while Amanda Malo (So., Greenwood, Minn.) posted 9.4 on the floor, which matched her career best. Kershner placed fourth in the all-around with a 35.975, while Malo took fifth at 35.875.
Gustavus is off until Feb. 3 when it participates in the JZ Invite at UW-Stout.
“We have an off weekend now so we have two weeks to work on upgrades and get them in our routines. Exciting things are in our future,” DeGrood said.