No. 23 BYU gymnastics clinched the win on senior night in the Marriott Center against the No. 16 Denver Pioneers behind outstanding performances from senior Kylie Eaquinto.
The Cougars sent Denver home with a loss after Eaquinto, a senior leader for BYU recorded new highs for the season on the vault and floor events in the last home meet of her collegiate career.
She tied for first place on vault with Denver’s Addie Hewitt and achieved solo gold on her floor performance.
“There’s always a lot of emotions going into [senior night] … and that was a fun way to end it, especially on that floor routine so I’m really going to miss the Marriott for sure," Eaquinto said.
The Cougars secured the win by a score of 196.575 to Denver’s 195.925. BYU won collectively on vault, beam and floor. The Pioneers and Cougars tied their team scores on the bars rotation.
Eaquinto’s floor routine blew the crowd away with a baseball sequence in the middle, to which she credits her dad for the idea to include an imaginary fastball to a teammate with a catcher’s glove. She scored a season personal record of 9.950, the highest score seen in any event all night.
Eaquinto also finished the night with a new season high on the vault with a score of 9.850 topping her previous season record of 9.825. She went on to score a 9.800 on the bars and a 9.325 on beam.
“This team is special … we lost nine seniors last year so it was a big shift.” She said. “Our younger classmen have done a really good job at stepping up and being ready.”
Eaquinto is the only senior on BYU’s squad and she’ll graduate with junior Alilah Alvarado, making the team younger than most in experience, but Alvarado and Eaquinto have expressed that their teammates push them to be the best they can be.
“It’s been the biggest blessing in my life. I’m so grateful that I got to have these four years here,” Eaquinto said. “My teammates, that’s what I’m going to miss the most, just competing by my best friends every Friday night.”
“That was a good meet, but I still think we have a lot of little half-tenths and little deductions that we can clean up so I’m excited to get back in the gym and work hard and see where else we can go," Eaquinto said.
BYU gymnastics is now 7-4 on the season and 3-2 in conference play. The Cougars will travel to Hope Coliseum in Morgantown, W.V. next to face the Mountaineers on Feb. 27 at 5 p.m. MST.