No. 25 Beavers Show Improvement at Utah

Friday, January 19

Salt Lake City, Utah

6:00 PM

Oregon State

196.300

197.450

Utah

Photo by: Ralph Greene

January 19, 2018 | Women's Gymnastics

Results

By: Athletic Communications

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The 25th-ranked Oregon State gymnastics team showed vast improvement in its second meet of the season opening the Pac-12 slate at No. 2 Utah Friday night. The Beavers came up short but easily set a season-best team score of 196.300.

Oregon State, which fell to the Utes 197.450-196.300, move to 1-1 on the season, while Utah improved to 4-1.

"I'm really impressed to how well the team performed tonight," head coach Tanya Chaplin said. "This is a very young, inexperienced team and I expect there to be some bumps in the road. But when there were bumps tonight, they just took the challenge and kept going. This is not an easy place to compete, but they really rose to that challenge too."

Sophomore Sabrina Gill established three career-bests, finishing third in the meet, en route to a personal-high 39.350 in the all-around. Her new career marks were on vault (9.825), uneven bars (9.850) and floor exercise (9.825). Junior McKenna Singley also posted a career-high in the all-around with a 39.250.

On a night when all four of OSU's lineups reached the 49-point mark for the first time in 2018, the Beavers' vault lineup turned in the team's best score at 49.125. Shireen Khamedoost (9.80), Gill (9.825) and Kaitlyn Yanish (9.825) each turned in career-best vaults and Dani Dessaints and Mary Jacobsen each tallied team-high 9.85's.

OSU also posted event scores of 49.075 on bars, 49.075 on floor and 49.025 on beam.

Others producing personal-bests were Mariana Colussi-Pelaez (9.900) on bars, Singley (9.850), Destinee Davis (9.725), Alyssa Minyard (9.725) and Yanish (9.725) on beam, and Jacobsen (9.850) on floor.

"We still have work to do but we are excited to be home next week to face Stanford and to have our home crowd to support us."

Sophomore Destinee Davis made her season-debut in the final rotation on the balance beam. She set a career-high with a score of 9.725 after performing once in the competitive lineup in 2017.

The Beavers, who have spent the season's first two weeks on the road, return to Gill Coliseum for their home opener next Saturday against Stanford. The meet is slated for a 2:30 p.m. start.

Team Scores: No. 2 Utah 197.450; No. 25 Oregon State 196.300.
All-Around: 1. MyKayla Skinner (UTAH) 39.725; 2. MaKenna Merrell-Giles (UTAH) 39.600; 3. Sabrina Gill (OSU) 39.350. Other OSU Score: McKenna Singley 39.250.
Vault (49.125): T1. MyKayla Skinner (UTAH), MaKenna Merrell-Giles (UTAH) 9.950; 3. Kim Tessen (UTAH) 9.900. OSU Scores: Mary Jacobsen 9.850; Dani Dessaints 9.850; Sabrina Gill 9.850; Kaitlyn Yanish 9.800; Shireen Khamedoost 9.800; McKenna Singley 9.750 (Exhibition – Lena Greene 9.700).
Uneven Bars (49.075): 1. MyKayla Skinner (UTAH) 9.975; 2. Mariana Colussi-Pelaez (OSU) 9.900; T3. Sabrina Gill (OSU), Tiffani Lewis (UTAH), MaKenna Merrell-Giles (UTAH), Kim Tessen (UTAH) 9.850. Other OSU Scores: Shireen Khamedoost 9.825; McKenna Singley 9.775; Mary Jacobsen 9.725; Alyssa Minyard 9.075.
Balance Beam (49.025): 1. MyKayla Skinner (UTAH) 9.925; T2. Dani Dessaints (OSU), Kari Lee (UTAH), MaKenna Merrell-Giles (UTAH) 9.875. Other OSU Scores: Dani Dessaints 9.875; McKenna Singley 9.850; Sabrina Gill 9.825; Kaitlyn Yanish 9.725; Destinee Davis 9.725; Alyssa Minyard 9.725.
Floor Exercise (49.075): T1. Tiffani Lewis (UTAH), Sydney Soloski (UTAH), MaKenna Merrell-Giles (UTAH) 9.925. OSU Scores: McKenna Singley 9.875; Kaitlyn Yanish 9.850; Mary Jacobsen 9.850; Sabrina Gill 9.825; Isis Lowery 9.675; Savanna Force 9.275 (Exhibition – Maela Lazaro 9.025).