MEET RESULTS
FAIRMONT, West Virginia -- Azusa Pacific used its best first-half scoring total of the season to take an early lead, and the Cougars added their season-best tumbling performance to pull away late for a two-point win (279.705 to 277.525) in Friday's quarterfinal matchup with Quinnipiac at the 2015 National Collegiate Acrobatics & Tumbling Association National Championships.
With the win, Azusa Pacific advances to the NCATA semifinals for the fourth straight year, joining the four-time defending national champion University of Oregon as the only NCATA programs to reach four consecutive semifinals. The Cougars, who improved to 3-4 overall, will face top-seeded Baylor in Saturday's first semifinal, with the winner advancing to Saturday night's national championship final.
Although the teams did not meet in the regular season this year, Quinnipiac and Azusa Pacific are no strangers in postseason competition, as the programs have met in every NCATA national championship tournament in the association's five-year history.
Azusa Pacific never trailed in the meet, winning five of the six events including each of the first three events (compulsory, acro, and toss) to notch a season-best first-half scoring total of 97.00 points for a halftime lead of nearly a point (0.99). The Cougars scored a perfect-10 in the twisting pyramid for the third time this season, one of eight season-best individual heats in the meet.
Junior Triana Leal was involved in five of the eight season-best heats, including the perfect twisting pyramid along with a quad tumbling pass which contributed to the Cougars' season-best effort of 56.025 points in the six-heat tumbling event. Freshman Sarah DiSpaltro and junior Jamie Montgomery tied a season-best in the duo tumbling pass (9.400), and they both registered season-bests in their respective solo tumbling passes as DiSpaltro scored 9.950 on her aerial pass while Montgomery posted 9.775 on her open tumbling pass.
With a lead of 1.84 points heading into the team event, the Cougars added 34-hundredths to the final margin by scoring 98.48 points for its second-best team score of the season.
