By Aidan O’Connor | Sports Writer, Claire Marie Scott | LTVN Sports Reporter
No. 1 Baylor acrobatics and tumbling extended its winning streak to 46 meets, dominating No. 10 Saint Leo 277.450-249.940 Saturday night at the Ferrell Center.
LTVN’s Claire Marie Scott brings you close to the action.
“I can say during warm-ups we were not where we wanted to be, not skill-wise, but just mentality-wise,” head coach Felecia Mulkey said. “We had a little chat, did our thing, came back out and refocused.”
With an 18.66 advantage in start-up value, the Bears (8-0) got off to a hot start in Compulsory — earning a 9.50 in Acro, 9.80 in Pyramid, a season-best Perfect 10 in the Toss, and 9.15 in Tumbling. After the first event, Baylor led Saint Leo 38.45 to 35.00.
“I feel like it’s really exciting to see two 10s, well, a 10 specifically in Compulsory because we work so much on synchronization,” junior tumbler Nova Schmit said. “It really just comes down to perfect timing in competition, it’s really hard to do, so I’m really proud of us.”
In the optional portion of the meet, Baylor scored 9.95 in the 5 Element heat, 9.70 in the 6 Element heat and 9.85 in the 7 Element heat. In total, Baylor came away from the event with 29.50 points and Saint Leo with 27.65.
The Bears continued to build upon their lead going into halftime in the pyramid event, scoring 9.90 in the Inversion heat, 9.80 in the Synchronized heat and a season-best Perfect 10 in the Open heat. Baylor entered halftime up 5.45 points over the Lions.
Coming out of the half, the Bears continued their success in the Toss event, scoring two 9.40s and a 9.50. Baylor’s lead was now on the up and up, as they extended it to 125.950 to Saint Leo’s 119.500 points.
In the tumbling event, Schmit, junior tumbler Sophia Neylon and sophomore tumbler Emily Bott earned a 9.30 on the Trio pass, which was the best of the season for the green and gold. Junior tumbler Alyiah Thomas also matched a team high of 9.85 in the Aerial pass heat. After competing in the six heats in the tumbling event, the green and gold scored a total of 57.40 points to the Lions’ 52.05.
To end the night, Baylor scored 94.100 to Saint Leo’s 78.390 in the team event. The final score for the meet saw Baylor come out on top, winning by 27.51 points; 277.450/299.20 to 249.940/280.54.
“It’s always fun to have a top-10 match-up, and a lot of the times you go into meets with the mentality of us versus us, and I feel like we really pushed ourselves,” senior base Morgan Brown said. “We’re able to translate a lot of the things we’ve been working on in practice and really bring our execution up in competition, so it’s really exciting and [we’re] just looking forward to competing against Oregon next weekend.”
The Bears will be back on the mat for their final meet before the NCATA National Championships as they face off against No. 2 Oregon at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Ferrell Center.
