By Gio Gennero | Sports Writer
No. 1 Baylor acrobatics and tumbling opened the new season with a 267.050-238.510 victory over West Liberty Sunday evening in the Ferrell Center.
Head coach Felecia Mulkey said she was very happy with the team’s performance, but that she sees where the team needs to improve. She’s staying true to her mentality that the team shouldn’t be peaking yet.
“We shook some nerves out, but we have a lot of work to do,” Mulkey said. “Some really high-highs and I wouldn’t say too low-lows, but not really where we wanted to be and I think [the team] would agree with that.”
To kick off the meet and the season was event one, Compulsory. The Bears (1-0) immediately separated themselves by almost six points, with a 38.25-32.95 first event win. Baylor won every heat, scoring over 9.7 in three of the four rounds.
The gap widened between the two squads as the green and gold took the Acro event 28.95-25.30. In each element, the Bears scored a 9.3 or higher with West Liberty’s highest element score being 9.1. The results brought the meet total to 67.20-58.25.
The Pyramid event was West Liberty’s event performance to this point of the meet, scoring over nine points in every heat to score a 27.6. The defending champs fittingly responded with a perfect 10 in the first heat to go along with a pair of 9.85s for a 29.7 event score. The Bears then led 96.90-85.85 overall.
Continuing its dominance, Baylor won the Toss event as well, once again sweeping through each heat. It’s 28.05-24.00 event victory helped it take a 124.95-109.85 lead after four events.
The Bears started the Tumbling event a little shaky with three-straight scores below their usual nines; however, their next three heats cleaned things up with three-consecutive 9.3 or higher scores. The group won the fifth event 54.65-47.20.
To cap things off was the team event, in which the 2022 national champs put on a show to take the event 87.45-81.46, sweeping through the meet by winning every event and taking home the win.
Baylor will hit the road to Angola, Ind. to face Trine University on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 11 a.m.
