Cornell gymnastics hosted and placed first at the Empire St. Collegiate Championship. Along with taking home the gold, the Red set a new season-high team score of 194.200 and the highest team score on the floor of 49.050.
Newman Arena was in an energy-filled frenzy with a total attendance of roughly 600 people as it hosted five teams: State University of New York Brockport, SUNY Cortland, Ithaca College, Long Island University and Utica University on Sunday.
“This is a great and always close meet,” said head coach Melanie Hall. “Today we put together a meet we should have done a while ago. This score of at least [194.000] is where we need to be every single week. This is what we train for, so I am pleased with today, and a win is always a good thing.”
On vault, Brockport’s Kiara Hockman achieved the meet’s highest score of 9.775 points. Not far behind, freshman Dahlia Jhaveri earned the Red 9.725 points and sophomore Addy Rothstein was fifth place with a score of 9.700. The Red had a strong showing on vault, with each score being at least 9.625 or higher.
“Dahlia is our vault and bar specialist,” Hall said. She works hard in the gym and today that work looked phenomenal. She put everything together.”
On the floor, Hockman achieved a personal best of 9.900 in her career. This would go on to be the highest score of the competition. For the Red, sophomore Avery Byun and senior Sydney Beers both put on dazzling performances, landing them with scores of 9.875 and 9.850 respectively.
For the uneven bars, Cornell sophomore Natalia Tehrani led the Red with a score of 9.700, and Beers trailed right behind her with a score of 9.600. It would be junior Morgen Shambo who would seal the team’s vault performance with the meet’s second-place high score of 9.750.
“During practice, I’ve been zoning in on my handstands and making sure they are undeniable, completely vertical,” Shambo said. “The energy of the team was really helpful because we had a lot of hits on bars.”
During the balance beam event, Cortland’s Samantha Meadows and Victoria Cave led their team with scores of 9.850 and 9.825, respectively. The Red began the event strong with Byun scoring 9.800, matching her performance in their previous competition against the University of Pennsylvania. Beers would match Byun’s score and the two tied for the fifth-highest score of the meet.
“A lot of my training is mental,” Byun said. “During the week, I take it easy on my body so I can do well at competitions, but I do a lot of mental exercises. That is really what gymnastics is.”
Beers also took first place in the All-Around results with 38.925 points, and Byun took second with 38.850 points.
“At this point in the season everybody is a little tired at Cornell, so the next two weeks we are going to focus on smaller details, shorter practices and making sure everyone stays healthy as we finish up the second half of our season,” Hall said.
Up next, the Red will travel to Washington D.C. and take on George Washington University at 1 p.m. on Feb. 16, with coverage of the competition available on ESPN+.
