Note (Feb. 15, 2017): This story has been updated to include a meet scoring correction issued by the NCATA on Feb. 15, 2017. During the meet, Hawai'i Pacific's Heat 1 in the Acro event was scored as a 9.50, which has been corrected to 9.95. The Hawai'i Pacific final score is now reflected as 275.925 points, rather than the originally-reported 275.475 points.
AZUSA, Calif. -- Separated by only one point in the National Collegiate Acrobatics & Tumbling Association preseason poll, the difference between Azusa Pacific and Hawai'i Pacific in actual competition was even narrower as the Sharks scored 275.925 points and edged the Cougars, who scored 275.105 points, by a margin of just 82-hundredths of a point.
The season-opening matchup represented the fourth time the two Division II programs had faced each other in the past 10 contests dating back to last year's season opener. The teams will meet again for a rematch on the island of O'ahu in just 11 days.
"The positive thing about any season opener is you really find out where your freshmen are in terms of how competitive they are, and I thought their performance tonight was positive for us," Azusa Pacific head coach Colleen Kausrud said. "I also thought that the veterans of our group also did well for the most part, especially in tumbling. Our seniors have really brought the team together and led the group. It's an unselfish leadership, and it's all about the team."
Azusa Pacific took a slight early lead with a half-point edge in the compulsory event, but Hawai'i Pacific surged ahead in the toss event to take a lead of 0.95 points with two events left.
The Cougars outscored HPU in five of the six tumbling heats, including a pair of solo tumbling passes which each scored a meet-high 9.775 points as Ashleigh Pitts registered the high score in the aerial tumbling pass while Heather Hovander equaled the top mark in the open tumbling pass. Those performances gave the Cougars a lead of 1.15 points heading into the team event to wrap up the meet.
After Hawaii Pacific scored 97.70 points, the entire meet came down to the team event's smallest deductions, and Azusa Pacific's team event performance was not quite clean enough, and the Cougars finished with 95.73 points to wind up less than nine-tenths of a point behind the Sharks in the final tally.
"Our focus coming into the meet was cleaning everything up and making sure we weren't taking extra steps or making other mistakes that could cost us deductions," Kausrud said. "We need to learn from our mistakes and continue cleaning things up."
Azusa Pacific scored better than 9.75 points in six of the 19 heats of the meet which are worth 10 points each, scoring the team's meet-high of 9.90 in the compulsory toss. The Sharks also had seven heats of 9.75 points or better, scoring meet-highs of 9.95 in the five-element heat of the Acro event and the open heat of the pyramid event to wrap up the first half.
