AZUSA, Calif. – In a sport that shows scores down to the thousandths of a point, execution on the little things can often prove to be everything. While the Azusa Pacific acrobatics and tumbling squad posted their highest score of the season, the details proved to be the difference as they fell to the University of Oregon by a final score of 281.30-277.39 Thursday night before an announced crowd of 1,002 in the Felix Event Center.
Oregon, who entered the meet ranked second in the nation, built up a one point advantage over the course of the compulsory event, posting three scores of 9.65 or better in the four heats of the event, while the Cougars' best mark was a 9.65 in the toss heat. The Ducks continued to build their lead in the acro event, winning all three heats, though the Cougars' duo of
Jessica Gill and
Hannah Alonzo put up an impressive 9.70 on the 5-element heat.
The next three events were nip-and-tuck the whole way, with the Cougars earning their first heat win of the evening on the inverted pyramid with a 9.70. Oregon would win the other two heats of the event to extend their lead to just over a point and a half at intermission, with 96.85 to the Cougars' 95.30.
Azusa Pacific would again win one of the three heats in the fourth event, the toss event, taking a 9.50 score in the synchronized toss, but would end up .05 behind Oregon in the event. The Cougars would make that up in the tumbling event, where they would win both the quad and aerial tumbling passes, with
Beth Magee earning the team's highest score of the night with a 9.85 on the aerial pass. While there were minor issues for both teams in the team event, the Ducks were just a little cleaner on the whole, scoring a 99.00 to the Cougars' 96.64 to pull away for the four-point win.
"It's nice to know that talent for talent – we're good," Cougar head coach
Colleen Kausrud said of her team after the meet. "We've never had a higher start value than Oregon. We just need to execute. We're close. We would have liked to take it tonight, but it wasn't meant to be. But we can get them at the championships."
Azusa Pacific is the only non-Division I school to have qualified for the national championships every year of the sport's existence, and the annual meet with the Ducks is usually a good barometer for where the Cougars match up with the elite programs going ahead to the national championships in April, which this year will be hosted by Oregon. For the Cougars (2-1 on the season), they have four weeks to prepare for a two-meet road trip in Texas, where they will visit second-year program East Texas Baptist on March 26 before facing top-ranked, five-time national champion Baylor two days later.
