Iowa gymnastics falls short in weekend meets
Both the men’s and women’s gymnastics teams lost but saw improvement.
Iowa gymnast Rogelio Vazquez performs on the parallel bars during a gymnastics meet against Minnesota and Illinois-Chicago on Saturday, Feb 2, 2019. The Golden Gophers won the meet with a total score of 406.400 with the Hawkeyes scoring 401.600 and the Flames scoring 355.750.
February 10, 2019
The Iowa men’s and women’s gymnastics teams both teams fell short of victories this weekend.
The men’s team hosted top-ranked Oklahoma in Carver-Hawkeye on Saturday. The Hawkeyes fell short with the final score being 405.150-397.750.
Though the team lost, junior Andrew Herrador took first place in the all-around competition with a 78.650.
Freshman Evan Davis followed suit. The freshman was only .300 behind Herrador to take second place in the all-around.
The Hawkeyes not only struggled during the meet but a bit in practice this week.
“We had a less than stellar week in training,” head coach JD Reive said in a release. “We were really great starting off and we kind of dipped.”
The Hawkeyes started the meet on the floor where they were able to take a lead over the Sooners, but after the Hawkeyes went onto pommel horse, some worry set in for Reive.
“I was nervous thinking that pommel horse would be how the rest of the meet went,” Reive said in a release. “What I thought was great, though, was that even after we had that debacle, we started doing better on events that we haven’t been and finished on high bar, which was awesome.”
Overall, the Hawkeyes had 13 scores go down in the record books for season-highs and career-bests.
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In its third rotation, Iowa went onto rings where the team scored a season-high 66.900, with junior Brandon Wong leading the Hawkeyes with a career-best 13.550.
Sophomore Bennet Huang and Herrador both earned career-high scores on vault with scores of 14.450 (third) and 13.850 (11th), respectively.
Senior Rogelio Vazquez tallied his season-best on parallel bars to give him second place, leading the Hawkeyes to a 65.850 team score.
The final rotation for Iowa was on high bar where the junior Mitch Mandozzi led with a career-best of 13.600 giving him third place overall.
Overall, Iowa was pleased with how the team was able to overcome some of the early miscues.
“We had really good sets, really good landings, and we were able to have that presence mindset and make a mistake and do it again is really important,” Reive said in a release.
On Sunday, the GymHawks traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to take on No. 10 Michigan.
The GymHawks fell to the Wolverines by a score of 197.350-195.375, but earned a team season-high score on vault with a 48.775.
“We wanted to see if we could create the magic in a really cool place, [and] it started on bars,” head coach Larissa Libby said in a release. “We tried to keep the girls focused on one thing at a time and one person at a time. We wanted to make sure all of our effort as a team went into the girl going, and making sure the first person hits.”
Though the team score came up short, four GymHawks earned career highs.
The GymHawks started off strong on bars with a team score of 49.000, with junior Clair Kaji starting things off with a 9.750.
“That would be Clair on bars today,” Libby said in a release. “She did a phenomenal job; it gave us a really good start.”
Sophomore Emma Hartzler tied her career high of 9.775 to lead Iowa to second place on bars.
On vault, freshman Lauren Guerin and Hartzler tallied career-highs with scores of 9.750 and 9.725 respectively.
As Iowa finished the meet on beam, senior Nicole Chow registered her a career high of 9.875 to wrap up the meet for the Hawkeyes.
The GymHawks will now head back to Iowa City to take on Illinois on Feb. 16 inside Carver.
