By Zach Babajanof-Rustrian | Sports Writer
No. 1 Baylor acrobatics and tumbling took down No. 11 UMHB 279.870-272.465 — extending the Bears’ winning streak to 29 meets — on Sunday at the Ferrell Center.
Baylor (2-0) scored higher than a nine in every heat, and head coach Felicia Mulkey said she saw lots of improvement.
Starting off the meet in the Compulsory event, the Bears scored a 38.70, while the Crusaders (0-1) scored a 37.25. Baylor was able to improve in its score compared to its last meet against Texas Lutheran.
In the optional portion of the meet, Baylor scored a total of 29.10 in the event, with the highest score of the day from the Bears being in Heat 1 with a 9.95. In the event, junior top Jordan Gruendler and senior base Bayley Humphrey competed their new trick named the boomerang.
“I hope people understand how incredibly hard [the boomerang trick] is because they make it look so easy,” Mulkey said. “I don’t think there’s two other people in the country in our sport … there’s not another two collegiate acro gymnasts that could do it.”
In the third event of the meet, Pyramid, the Bears scored a total 29.60 and the Cru scored a total of 29.05. Baylor was leading 97.40-94.65 heading into half.
After the break in the Toss event, Baylor scored a total of 28.45 while Mary Hardin-Baylor scored a total of 27.00. Baylor had scores of 9.55, 9.45 and 9.45 respectively in the heats for the event.
In the Tumbling event, the Bears were able to score a total of 57.10 with the best score of the event being in the Aerial pass from freshman Emily Bott with a 9.90. The Crusaders scored a total of 53.325 in the event, with Baylor being up 182.950 to 174.975.
In the last event in the meet, the Team event, Baylor scored a total of 96.92 and Mary Hardin-Baylor earned a 97.49. Even though the Bears got the win, Mulkey was disappointed in the performance in the Team event.
“I’m not proud of the team event. So for us, this doesn’t feel like a win, because that is very uncharacteristic of who we are,” Mulkey said. “They need to hit everything. I don’t know how many falls, that team event score was entirely too high.”
With the Bears getting the victory, they now look toward a national championship rematch against No. 2 Oregon.
“I’m excited about it. I think we’re in the right place now,” Mulkey said. “I think we needed this little bit of adversity and not do as well as we should have. So we’ll be ready to go in a couple of weeks.”
The Bears will take on the Ducks on Saturday Feb. 25, at the Ferrell Center.
