BYU gymnastics scored a 196.100 at the inaugural Mountain Rim Gymnastics Championship meet Saturday, the Cougars’ third-best score of the season.
Denver claimed the MRGC title with a season-high 196.925, followed closely by Boise State with a 196.900. Southern Utah took third with a 196.125; then BYU with a 196.100; and Utah State took last place with a 196.025.
“I was very pleased with our team; I thought we did very well,” said head coach Brad Cattermole. “The meet was awfully close. It isn’t very often when you get in a meet where all the teams compete well. Nobody did poorly; everybody did well.”
BYU started on the bars, consecutively scoring a 49.100. Junior KayCee Gassaway scored the third highest score of the meet as well as tied with her own personal career high with a 9.875.
Following bars, the next event was the beams. Senior Raquel Willman Hatch led the Cougars with the team-high score of 9.800. Juniors Megan Bain Tidwell and Ashley Follett as well as sophomore Summer Raymond all scored a 9.775 on bars, putting BYU’s final score to a 49.100.
The floor routines were led by sophomore Makenzie Johnson with a 9.900, the same score she led the Cougars with last week at the University of Arizona. Johnson took the third best score for the floor at Saturday’s meet.
Sophomore Eliane Kulczyk also performed well on her floor routine with a 9.875 as well as Hatch with a 9.825. The floor turned out to be BYU’s best event of the meet with an overall score of 49.150.
Gassaway scored a career-high 9.900 on vault. Kulczyk’s 9.875 and Hatch’s 9.825 also contributed to the team’s final score on vault of 49.025.
“KayCee did awesome on vault,” Cattermole said. “We put her up first because she doesn’t make mistakes.”
Boise State’s Kelsey Morris took first place in the all-around scores of the championship with a 39.500. BYU’s Hatch took fourth, with a 39.300, followed by Johnson, with a 39.275 all-around score.
At the end of the meet the MRGC awards were announced, where Cattermole was named the 2014 MRGC coach of the year. Hatch, Johnson, Gassaway and Kulczyk represented the Cougars winning all-conference honors.
The NCAA will announce the regional qualifiers and locations on Monday, March 24.
