February 11, 2002

Tumblers Take Second

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The gymnastics team finished second at the 2002 Big Red Invitational this past weekend. The squad rebounded from a disappointing fifth-place finish at last week’s New Hampshire Invitational to beat local rivals Ithaca College and Cortland. Despite a season-best performance on the vault and an event win on the floor, the Red could not overtake the squad from Towson. Even with some injuries, Towson set Teagle Gymnasium records on the floor and vault on its way to individual wins in all four events as well as the all-around.

This weekend’s performance reminds head coach Paul Beckworth that there is always room for improvement.

“We did pretty well. We were hoping to beat Towson. They are normally in the top-20. We had a couple of falls, but we had a good meet. One hundred and ninety is low for [Towson]. If we added in the points deducted from our falls, we would have had a 191. We want to try and hit on all our events. We’re looking for the magical 190 team score.”

The Red gave the home crowd of over 300 fans something to cheer about, with some solid individual efforts. Freshman Larissa Calka led Cornell on the floor and beam on her way to placing third in the all-around. Calka’s all-around score of 37.9 is the third highest total ever for a Cornell gymnast. Fellow freshman Andrea Mavro had two top-five finishes in a breakout performance. Sophomore Denise Hurd also set a season-best on the vault to finish second in the event.

Cornell is proud of its individual performances, but Calka says that the team wants to focus more on the next meet.

“I think we all did really well. We had a few falls, but we’re pretty happy. We always want to get better. We’ve already beaten Ithaca and Cortland. We look good in practice. I think we’ll do well in our next meet.”

Archived article by Adam Matthews