Gymnasts To Compete In Back-To-Back Meets

PROVO -- For the first time this season, the BYU women's gymnastics team will compete on back-to-back nights as they travel to Utah State on Friday, then host Stanford and Southern Utah on Saturday.

This weekend will be the second time this season BYU has faced Southern Utah and Stanford. Actually, the Cougars traveled to Stanford just last Saturday, losing to the No. 5 Cardinal 196.875- 195.225.

BYU also traveled to Southern Utah earlier this year on Feb. 12, defeating the Thunderbirds 196.225- 194.150. The Cougars set a school record on the vault in that meet, with a 49.100.

Although BYU has not yet faced Utah State this season, the Aggies will meet BYU twice in the next week. After the meet in Logan on Saturday, Utah State will travel to Provo on March 16.

BYU, at 8-2 on the season, has a regional qualifying score of 195.215, which ranks at No. 18 in the nation. Stanford is No. 4 in the nation with a 196.680, Utah State is No. 34 with a 194.100 and Southern Utah is at No. 48 with a 192.395.

Previous to this season, the BYU women's gymnastics team had only scored above a 196 on three occasions. This season, the Cougars have already equaled that number, scoring above a 196 in three consecutive meets against Utah, Southern Utah and a record-setting 196.900 against Missouri.

The Cougars have set new school records in every event this year except for the beam, including the overall team score. And, BYU's mark of 49.000 on the beam is just shy of the school-record 49.150. Marks of 49.100 on vault, 49.475 on bars, 49.525 on floor and 196.900 overall are all new school records.