Iowa gymnastics had a roller coaster of a weekend. While both teams started out the weekend strong, the women couldn’t keep the victory momentum on a road trip to Texas.
To kick off the big weekend for Iowa gymnastics, the women hosted Southeast Missouri State in Carver-Hawkeye on March 2 for an aqua-theme Senior Night.
The GymHawks, over the course of the night, dominated the Redhawks in every event and took first in the all around, claiming a meet victory, 195.500-192.750.
“It was good,” said senior Nikki Youd. “I think we need to work a little bit more on just maintaining a build through our lineups. I thought we had a lot of good highlights throughout the meet. We’re getting there.”
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Two of the most prominent highlights of the night were the very last two competitive Iowa routines of the night. Two of the four seniors, Melissa Zurawski and Lanie Snyder, both scored a season-high 9.925 for their routines, tying for the event title. The score was a career high for Zurawski.
After the March 2 victory, the women didn’t have much time to celebrate; they caught a 5 a.m. flight March 3 to face Texas Woman’s University on Sunday.
That meet proved to be a heartbreaker for the GymHawks — they lost to the Pioneers, 195.575-195.525.
For the men, the weekend proved to be a boost to their confidence. No. 2 Penn State and No. 14 Arizona State headed into Carver — and they both left in defeat.
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Initially, things didn’t look good for the Hawkeyes, who counted two falls during the floor. But the team shook these off and pulled a relatively high score on the event — and in every event after that. In fact, the Hawkeyes recorded more scores in the 14s than in the 12s, which left their opponents in the dust.
“This week was just a really good week for us because we went in the gym, and stopped complaining about where we’re at in the rankings, and decided to just focus on ourselves,” said junior Jake Brodarzon. “I think that really showed tonight because we competed with so much more confidence than we’ve had in the previous meets.”
Penn State’s confidence was rattled. The Nittany Lions struggled with consistency throughout the night.
Arizona State was likewise shaky. The Sun Devils recorded even more falls than Iowa had the previous weekend.
To say the least, March 3 was a big change of pace for the Hawkeyes.