(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)
Saturday afternoon the No. 21 Arizona State Gym Devils (8-8) set out to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions (8-7), Yale Bulldogs (11-7), and the Cornell Bears (8-13) for a quad-meet in Happy Valley.
The Devils started off the meet on bars with sophomore Cairo Leonard-Baker leading the way scoring an event-high 9.925, her fourth consecutive meet with that bars score. Justine Callis also matched her season-high with a 9.800.
The Devils finished the event with a team total of 49.000, and after the first rotation, they were in second overall only to Penn State’s 49.050 score on vault. Penn State finished with three gymnasts in the top five for this event.
The Devils then moved on to beam where three seniors Callis Morgan Wilson, and Anne Kuhm all scored 9.800s leading ASU to a team score of 48.900. Yale freshman Jacey Baldovino took the event title on beam with a score of 9.850.
Halfway through the meet the Devils still sat 0.45 points behind the Nittany Lions, enough for second place.
Next up, the Devils were on floor where sophomore star Leonard-Baker did not participate. Leonard-Baker is the Gym Devils best gymnast on floor where she scores an average of 9.875.
On floor the Devils mounted a comeback led by senior Corinne Belkoff’s career-high 9.900. Fellow senior Kaitlyn Szafranski also pitched in a 9.875 on floor. K. Szafranski has posted a 9.800+ on floor in all but two meets this season. Belkoff was the co-event leader, alongside Penn State freshman Melissa Astarita who also finished with a 9.900.
The Devils posted a 49.225, their second-best score on floor this season. This score pushed the Devils past Penn State and they led the meet with an overall score of 147.125 after three events.
The Gym Devils last event of the day was vault where they failed to maintain their first-place lead. Some of this loss could be attributed to the fact that Leonard-Baker did not perform again. Wilson took the event title with a 9.900 and K. Szafranski capped off a great meet with a career-high 9.850.
Kuhm was the only Sun Devil to perform in all four events. She took second in the all-around title, scoring a 39.150 while freshman Lauren Bridgens from Penn State took the title with a 39.400.
In the end, Penn State took first with a 196.375, ASU second with a 196.150, Cornell third with a 194.575, and Yale fourth with a 194.100.
The Devils next meet is another quad-meet on Sunday, March 10 at 2:00 p.m.. The meet will be hosted by No. 6 Denver and will also include No. 18 Nebraska and Pittsburgh.
