After finishing fourth a weekend ago at the Ivy Classic, the gymnastics team will return to action tomorrow when it hosts Temple in Teagle Gymnasium. Cornell will look to bounce back from one of its worst performances of the year, in which it struggled on several events.
Last weekend at Penn, the tumblers provided uncharacteristically poor performances on the beam and the vault. The Red managed to score just 44.925 as a team on the beam, by far its season-low effort. The team was plagued by several falls on the apparatus, with sophomores Meghan Miller and Danielle Inwald being the only two members breaking the 9.0 mark. Despite a third-place finish by junior Denise Hurd, the Red also scored poorly on the vault.
As it has done all season, the Red once again posted high scores on the uneven bars. The team finished first in the event, posting a team-record score of 48.350. Freshman Cathy Schnell broke the Cornell record, scoring a 9.9, and in doing so, claiming a share of the Ivy title. Sophomore Shellen Goltz also put up one of the best scores in program history, nailing her routine for a 9.8, which is fourth-best ever.
Cornell, led by the efforts of sophomore Larissa Calka, also placed well on the floor exercise. Calka’s 9.775 led the team to a 48.175 showing on the event.
The Red will look to bounce back in the beam and vault this week.
“Hopefully we’ve got that problem solved. We’ve been working really hard on both all week,” Cornell head coach Paul Beckwith said. “I look for a moderate improvement on the vault … and beam should be a gigantic improvement.”
Cornell, though, will face a tough opponent in Temple, which has been scoring higher than the Red this season.
“They’ve been scoring pretty consistently in the 190-191 range,” said Beckwith. “That’s where our team is. We just need to show it.”
“I think we’re every bit as good as they are,” Beckwith concluded.
Archived article by Alex Ip