AZUSA, Calif. -- Azusa Pacific turned in significant improvements on last month's season-opening meet, improving in five of six events to pick up a road victory over the first-year acrobatics and tumbling program from Glenville State College Tuesday evening, scoring 262.88 points to GSC's 253.93.
The Cougars' 8.95-point margin of victory was its largest since 2014, when Azusa Pacific posted a winning margin of nearly 20 points against Gannon University, which at the time was a first-year program, in the quarterfinals of the NCATA national championships.
The biggest improvements came in tumbling heats, starting at the beginning of the meet with a 2.10-point improvement in compulsory tumbling before Azusa Pacific bettered its tumbling event scores by over eight full points across six tumbling heats. The duo tumbling heat with freshman Kimi Yee and sophomore Ashleigh Pitts scored a 9.00, representing the biggest single-heat upgrade from the season opener.
The three individual tumbling passes combined for 3.5 points of improvement over the season opener, starting with sophomore Hannah Steffen's aerial pass, which scored a 9.20 and was followed by Yee's six-element pass for a 9.40. Senior Jamie Montgomery wrapped up the tumbling event with a meet-best tumbling score of 9.80 in her open pass.
The Cougars also notched their second perfect-10 score of the season, highlighting a near-perfect pyramid event with a perfect score in the twisting pyramid heat, which featured Jhymai Stevenson, Pitts, Triana Leal, Kirsten Ferramola, Haley Randall, and Noelle Miranda. The other two pyramid heats each scored 9.85, giving Azusa Pacific its best-ever pyramid score in a regular-season meet in program history.
All three heats of the acro event also marked improvements on the season-opening performance, including a 1.50-point improvement in the six-element acro heat which included Stevenson, Montgomery, Yee, Kylee Ostrander, and Ellen Barker.
Azusa Pacific returns to the mat in just two days, staying in the state of West Virginia for a Thursday, March 10 tri-meet at Fairmont State which will also include Gannon. The Cougars will return home for two more meets next week, hosting Quinnipiac on Tuesday, March 15, along with a Thursday, March 17 tri-meet against Hawai'i Pacific and Fairmont State.
