AZUSA, Calif. -- Azusa Pacific and Oregon combined to post two of the five best team scores among all National Collegiate Acrobatics & Tumbling Association (NCATA) programs this season, as the No. 2-ranked Ducks edged just ahead of the No. 4-ranked Cougars to win by just over a point Tuesday night at the Felix Event Center.
Both programs registered season-highs in scoring, with Oregon cracking 280 points for the first time this year with 280.900 points, the third-best team score in NCATA competition in 2019, while Azusa Pacific scored 279.875, which is the fifth-best score in the NCATA this year. The Ducks' 1.025-point winning margin was the second-closest margin of any NCATA dual meet this year.
With the loss, Azusa Pacific drops to 3-1 on the year, while Oregon improves to 4-1.
What It Means: Azusa Pacific is 2-0 to start the season for the second straight year, repeating the history made a year ago when the Cougars recorded the first 2-0 start in program history. Last year, Azusa Pacific won four in a row to start a 5-1 regular season before advancing to the NCATA National Championship semifinals for the third time in the past four seasons.
How It Happened: Azusa Pacific tied season-highs in the pyramid and toss events while setting new season-highs in the higher-valued tumbling and team events. The Cougars tied or set season-highs in four individual heats, but Oregon took the lead from the opening compulsory event and never trailed again in the meet. The Ducks won the opening event by 55-hundredths of a point, scoring 38.60 to Azusa Pacific's 38.05, but the Cougars won the acro and pyramid events to trim Oregon's halftime lead to just three-tenths of a point.
Oregon's consistent start was repeated in the second half, as the Ducks won the toss event by 15-hundredths and the tumbling event by nearly three-tenths of a point to take a lead of just over seven-tenths of a point into the team event.
Both teams put together strong, clean performances in the team event, but Oregon inched forward by another three-tenths of a point to claim the victory by a total margin of just 1.025 points.
Top Performances: Jessica Gill registered the Cougars' best six-element solo tumbling score this season (9.875), receiving less than one-tenth of a point in deductions for a pass with a start value of 9.95. Gabby Spencer added another outstanding solo tumbling effort with a score of 9.825 in the open pass. The Cougars' quad tumbling unit led by Gill and joined by a freshman trio of Jacie Van De Zilver, Juliet Webb, and Kendal Shride scored a season-high 9.050.
The Cougars registered scores of 9.70 or better in eight heats, while Oregon scored at least 9.70 in 10 heats. Azusa Pacific scored 9.70 points in the compulsory pyramid heat and then repeated that by posting three more scores of at least 9.70 in all three heats of the pyramid event. The Cougars edged Oregon by five-hundredths of a point in the pyramid event and posted a two-tenths of a point margin advantage in the acro event. Gill helped anchor Azusa Pacific's highest-scoring acro heat, the six-element acro, joining Kara Ingersoll, Madison Turner, and Polly Tieu to score 9.70.
Other than Gill's solo tumbling pass, the highest Azusa Pacific score in a heat was 9.85, from the inversion pyramid. The Cougars scored a season-high 98.10 points in the team event, improving by over a half-point in score while raising the start value by only 12-hundredths of a point. Azusa Pacific has improved its team event score in each successive meet this year.
What's Next: Azusa Pacific is home in two weeks for its final home meet of the season, hosting Hawaii Pacific on Tuesday, March 26, before visiting Oregon on March 30 to close out the regular season.
Quotable: "We increased our team event start value again, and this was the first time we hit the whole team event. That makes a huge difference and builds some confidence for us. We'll be ready to come back with some higher start values when we see them again later this month." -- Head coach Colleen Kausrud
"We had a great focus on our team and really weren't concerned with what they were doing on the other side of the mat. We wanted to execute what we had, and we were close enough in start values that if we executed just a little better, we would have had a chance to win." -- Kausrud
"We knew it was going to be close, and it's hard to complain too much when we got our highest score of the year. We really hoped to win, but we know we'll see them again later this season so hopefully we can build off this performance." -- junior Carolina Phillips
