Cougars Battle Hard But Lose on the Road

PROVO -- The BYU women’s gymnastics team (10-6-2) suffered a tough loss on the road Monday against two teams they have faced previously, Auburn and Southern Utah University.

"The last couple meets we've been in kind of a mid-season slump," BYU head coach Brad Cattermole said. "We just need to find a way to come out of it. We're capable of scoring well, we've just got to find a way to hit our rotations and put together an all-around good meet."

The Cougars started the night off on the floor exercise. Upperclassmen Jessica Villegas and Mickell Merrell led the way for BYU as each posted a 9.800 to get the Cougars off to a reasonable start.

With its second highest vault score of the year, BYU was able to pull themselves into contention to take first place. The Cougars did not record a single score under 9.725 and were led by sophomore Haylee Rollins who tied her career high receiving a 9.875. Natalie Eyre and KayCee Gassaway followed closely behind scoring a 9.850 and a 9.825, respectively.

Despite several impressive scores on bars, the third rotation is where things began to fall apart for BYU as the Cougars were forced to count a fall. Rollins once again posted the highest score for BYU with another 9.875. The Phoenix native would win the event title on both vault and bars.

Jennifer Lezeu added a 9.825 on bars. Lezeu competed in the all-around for just the second time this season and finished in third place with a 38.975. On beam, the Cougars were unable to find their balance. BYU’s highest score on the event came from Natalie Eyre who recorded a 9.700.

"We just need to work on staying focused," Rollins said. "We got a little shaken up after the fall on bars and went into the beam rotation nervous."

The Cougars will travel to Tucson this weekend where they will take on Arizona, New Hampshire and Texas Women’s at 7 p.m. in the McKale Center.