Floor show

Strong exercise lifts SUU to close win

By DAVID DeMILLE
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL

SUU’s gymnastics team once again demonstrated why it is one of the country’s top floor exercise teams when it beat Utah State 195.550-195.150 on Monday and improved to 6-0 on the season.
The Thunderbirds were down nearly half a point heading into the final rotation, but Talayna Fortunato, Molly Bauer, Cayce Overstreet and Sheena Shaw each scored 9.875, Jayme Morgan scored 9.900, and Sandi Lyman scored 9.925 as SUU recorded a 49.450 win, its second-best team score ever in floor exercises.
Lyman tied for second in SUU’s history, placing only behind her score of 9.950 at last year’s Western Gymnastics Conference meet.
The team was also down heading to the floor the last time it played against Boise State and managed to win. Coach Scott Bauman said the ’Birds always have an advantage heading to the floor in a close meet.
“The girls just know when we’re within reaching distance going to floor,” Bauman said. “We were down again, but we depend on our floor team and we feel very confident heading into that last event if we’re close.”
Bauman, a 1990 graduate of USU, served as an assistant coach under the Aggies’ Ray Corn from 1984-91 and said the victory over his alma mater was especially nice.
“It’s always great to beat Utah State,” Bauman said. “I got started there under Coach Corn and learned a lot. They’re a very strong, deep program, and it’s always fun to get the win against them.”
The ’Birds had just enough strong performances on the first three events to stay within striking distance, with Fortunato winning uneven bars at 9.850 and Carly Geronimo taking second on beam with 9.850.
Geronimo also tied for third on bars with teammate Jessiann Andrus at 9.825, and Bauer finished third on vault with a team-high of 9.775.
“I saw a lot of fight from us,” Morgan said. “We were scrapping and doing whatever we had to. We showed glimpses of what we can do. There were some great performances tonight, and in the places where we made mistakes we know we can step it up.”
The ’Birds were confident heading in against the Aggies, having seen USU’s meet with Utah.
“We were watching them on television against Utah,” Fortunato said. “We saw them getting scores that were a little iffy, and we knew that we had a really good chance to do this.”
Although undefeated, the T-Birds had been putting up less than stellar scores — compared with their standards — and were excited to score more than 195 as a team.
Scores are what ultimately determines where the team goes in the post season, and the T-Birds needed to improve by a couple of points to get on track.
After counting four falls against Boise State, SUU only counted one Monday, and the team took care of some smaller mistakes.
“We were able to bump it up a couple of points,” Lyman said. “We cleaned up some of the little things we were doing wrong and put up a score closer to what we’re capable of.”
Beating their in-state rivals was an important step, and the win should gain SUU some acclaim on the western gymnastics scene.“We were shooting for a 195,” Geronimo said. “It was nice to get