AZUSA, Calif. – Competing at home for the final time this season, the Cougars' Acrobatics and Tumbling team put the finishing touches on an undefeated regular season with a 282.765-265.445 victory over Arizona Christian Saturday night at the Felix Event Center.
Having been placed at the top of the national rankings Thursday for only the second time in program history, the Cougars got off to a small lead in the compulsory event, winning the final three heats to take a 36.6-35.8 lead after the first event. But once the Acro event started, the Cougar seniors found their form to take charge.
Jessica Gill and
Katrina Gonzalez helped the Cougars put up a season-best score of 9.95 in the 5-element acro heat to help Azusa Pacific double its lead over the course of the event, with all three heats scoring 9.85 or higher. The Cougars run of strong scores continued in the pyramid event, as all three heats saw the Cougars earn at least a 9.8 out of 10 to stretch their advantage to nearly two and a half points at intermission.
Coming out of halftime, the top-ranked Cougars (3-0) continued to pad their lead, putting forth a solid effort in the toss event and increasing their margin by another two points. A strong effort in the tumbling event stretched the margin to double digits, with the Cougars' senior tumbling leaders Gill,
Beth Magee, and
Gabby Spencer producing high marks in the solo passes, with Gill and Spencer each earning a 9.925. In all, Azusa Pacific won the tumbling event by just over seven points, giving themselves a nearly 12-point advantage going into the team event, where the Cougars topped the century mark for the second time this season, giving them their highest overall score since putting up a 284.640 in April of 2018 against Converse (SC).
At the conclusion of the team event, the Cougars took a chance to honor their six seniors who have been with the team through the past four seasons: Gill, Gonzalez, Magee, Spencer, Isabella Schmidt, and
Shelby Lopez. Over those four years, the Cougars have won 15 meets, reached two NCATA semifinals with hopes for a third in two weeks, and reached the top of the NCATA national rankings for only the second time in program history (2014 being the first).
With the win, the Cougars have finished the regular season undefeated for the first time ever. Only the top four teams in the national rankings will receive an invite to the NCATA national tournament, which will be held at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, April 22 and 23 and streamed on ESPN+. Azusa Pacific is one of only three schools that have qualified for the national tournament every season of the sport's existence (2011-present).
