(Photo: Joseph Constantin/WCSN)
The ASU Gym Devils fell in a dual meet against No. 19 Stanford on Friday night by a final score of 196.525 to 193.775.
Stanford put up strong performances in each event, being particularly stable on the vault and beam.
The Sun Devils sent sophomore Beka Conrad, junior Allie Salas and junior Stephanie Miceli into each of the four events to compete in the all-around. Stanford put just one gymnast in the all-around, junior Taylor Rice, who earned a high score for the meet of a 9.925 on beam.
ASU kicked off the meet with a solid start on vault, as Stanford began on the bars. During the second rotation, Miceli performed a clean bars routine, posting a good start for the Gym Devils on the event while Stanford was hitting consistent vaults.
Conrad earned a 9.750 in her beam routine for the Sun Devils while Stanford senior Samantha Shapiro kicked off the third rotation and mirrored Conrad’s score of a 9.750 her floor routine.
Stanford’s consistent routines were enough to cruise past an Arizona State team lacking in depth due to injuries and illnesses. The Cardinal came out with solid routines, but made few mistakes along the way which eventually led to an insurmountable margin in scores.
For ASU head coach René Lyst, however, the meet was a success in some aspects.
“I’m so proud of the girls and how hard they worked,” Lyst said. “We’ve just got to get some people healthy; [we are] going to go back in the gym and get some more consistency with some people doing new routines.”
Stanford closed on its strongest event, the beam, as ASU had dynamic performances on the floor exercise. ASU had to count a fall from their last athlete up, causing them to fall even further behind the Cardinal
Salas earned the highest all-around score for Arizona State of 39.075, while Taylor Rice received a meet-high all-around score of 39.500.
The Gym Devils will be back at Wells Fargo Arena Feb. 20th at 7 p.m. to face another ranked opponent in the Oregon State Beavers. You can catch the live stream of the event here: http://pac-12.com/videos/arizona-state-university
