Beavers Return to Gill to Host Huskies Sunday

Sunday, March 5

Corvallis, Ore.

12:00 PM

Oregon State

Washington

Photo by: Dave Nishitani/Oregon State Athletics

February 28, 2017 | Women's Gymnastics

Meet Notes

By: Oregon State Communications

THE MEET
No. 9 Oregon State (7-2, 3-2 Pac-12) returns to the friendly confines of Gill Coliseum for the final stretch of the regular season when the Beavers host No. 17 Washington (5-7, 2-3) at noon on Sunday. The meet will air live on Pac-12 Oregon and Pac-12 Washington with Rich Burk on the call with Samantha Peszek providing analysis.

LIVE STATS: There will be live stats at this link.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Live updates will be available on Twitter.

SUPERHERO DAY
The gymnastics team is hosting its first Superhero Day for Sunday's meet. Children are encouraged to dress as their favorite superheroes and the first 100 children through the Gill Coliseum doors will receive an Oregon State Superhero cape. Photo opportunities will be available in the front lobby.

QUICKLY
Oregon State is ranked in the top 20 on all four events: vault is 16th (49.090 RQS); uneven bars is 14th (49.130); balance beam is 15th (49.140); and floor exercise is ranked 10th (49.225) ... In the spirit of the DAM Cancer meet recently, OSU gymnasts Halli Briscoe, Mariana Colussi-Pelaez, Jaime Law and McKenna Singley, along with OSU women's basketball star, Sydney Wiese, participated in Haircuts for Cancer. Colussi-Pelaez and Law were scheduled for the event, while Briscoe and Singley jumped in spur of the moment ... Tanya Chaplin is in her 20th season as the Beavers' head coach and won the 300th regular season win of her career earlier this month at Seattle Pacific ... Three freshmen, Destinee Davis, Sabrina Gill and Isis Lowery, have made their collegiate debuts in 2017 ... Fellow freshman, Halli Briscoe has also performed in exhibition ... Erika Aufiero, who missed the entire 2016 campaign, and Dani Dessaints, who suffered a season-ending injury prior to the season's second meet, made their return to competition for the season-opener.

VS. WASHINGTON
Oregon State and Washington meet for the 130th clash on the competition floor Sunday afternoon. The Beavers lead the Pacific Northwest series lead 104-25. Despite the commanding series lead, the Beavers have won just three in a row dating back to a 2015 regular season dual in which the Beavers counted a pair of falls at Alaska Airlines Arena.

LAST WEEK VS. STANFORD
Oregon State 'hit' 24-for-24 for the third straight meet and the fifth time in six weeks last Friday at Stanford en route to a season-high team score of 197.125. It is the first time the Beavers have defeated the Cardinal in a regular season dual on The Farm since 1996. The win and big score moved the Beavers up to No. 9 in this week's rankings. Madeline Gardiner and Kaytianna McMillan went 1-2 in the all-around with scores of 39.450 and 39.400 respectively. Dani Dessaints performed a near-perfect vault to score 9.950 and help the Beavers to a season-best score of 49.300. OSU's floor lineup also caught fire with a season-best 49.475 as the team made a huge push for the 197-point mark midway through the meet. Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Isis Lowery and Gardiner scored back-to-back-to-back 9.90's to set up McMillan for a 9.925.

TEAM NOTES
• The Beavers have counted two falls in 2017, one on bars and one on beam ... both came in a win at Seattle Pacific ... OSU counted just one missed routine in 2016.
• Oregon State has 'hit' 185 out of 192 (96.4%) routines in 2017 ... in comparison, the Beavers 'hit' 276 out of 290 (95.2%) routines last year.
• The Beavers went 24-for-24 for the first time this season in the third meet of the season, against Northern Illinois & Seattle Pacific, and accomplished the feat the very next week against UCLA, for a second time. In 2016, it took until the season's seventh meet to 'hit' all 24 routines.
• Oregon State has 'hit' 24-for-24 in five of it's last six meets (three straight) ... the one miss was the opening routine (uneven bars) at Arizona.
• Through eight meets, OSU's senior-laden squad is doing some heavy lifting performing more than half of the team's routines - 106 of 192 (55.2%). The rest of the squad is contributing as follows: juniors 20 of 192 (10.4%); sophomores 37 of 192 (19.3%); freshmen 29 of 192 (15.1%).
• Seven out of OSU's 10 opponents on the 2017 schedule were ranked in the preseason Top 36; No. 4 UCLA, No. 6 Utah, No. 8 Auburn, No. 10 California, No. 11 Stanford, No. 18 Arizona and No. 20 Washington.
• Eighteen of Oregon State's 20 gymnasts earned 3.0 or higher GPA's during fall term.

THE ROSTER
Here are some quick hitters about the Oregon State gymnastics roster in 2017:
• Only half of the roster competed in a meet for Oregon State last season (Mariana Colussi-Pelaez, Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Dani Dessaints, Madeline Gardiner, Mary Jacobsen, Megan Jimenez, Shireen Khamedoost, Kaytianna McMillan, Taylor Ricci and McKenna Singley).
• There are six seniors on the squad (Erika Aufiero, Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Madeline Gardiner, Megan Jimenez, Kaytianna McMillan and Taylor Ricci) who combined to contribute 13 out of 24 routines at last year's regional meet.
• Oregon State returns three All-Americans - Madeline Gardiner (BB - 2014, '15, '16; AA - 2014), Erika Aufiero (UB - 2015) and Kaytianna McMillan (UB - 2016).
• Nine freshmen have joined the squad last fall (Halli Briscoe, Kaitlin Campbell, Destinee Davis, Sabrina Gill, Lena Greene, Jaime Law, Maela Lazaro, Isis Lowery and Alyssa Minyard).
• Of those freshmen, Sabrina Gill, Isis Lowery and Destinee Davis are the only three to have performed a competition routine through the season's first five meets. Halli Briscoe has also performed in exhibition.
• Four of the Beavers' are from the state of Oregon - Kaitlin Campbell (West Linn), Lena Greene (Tigard), Jaime Law (Corvallis) and Kaytianna McMillan (Coburg).
• Six OSU gymnasts are from outside of the United States - Mariana Colussi-Pelaez, Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Madeline Gardiner, Sabrina Gill and Taylor Ricci are all from Canada, while Isis Lowery is from Australia.
• The Beavers have 21 out of 24 routines returning from 2016 making lineup spots hard to come by.

SEEKING PERFECTION
OSU has eight gymnasts that have 'hit' all of their routines in 2017 include: Madeline Gardiner (28-28), Mary Jacobsen (23-23), Erika Aufiero (14-14), Taylor Ricci (12-12), Megan Jimenez (10-10), Silvia Colussi-Pelaez (10-10), Shireen Khamedoost (4-4) and Destinee Davis (1-1).

RQS
Rankings have shifted from scoring average to Regional Qualifying Scores (RQS). A team's RQS is determined by taking the six best scores, three of which must come on the road, dropping the high score and then averaging the remaining scores. This week, after scoring 197.125 at Stanford, the Beavers dropped their road score from the season-opener at Auburn (195.275).

WHICH WAY DO WE GO?
The Beavers, like every other team in the country, are seeking to qualify to the NCAA Championships and the Super Six. But to reach that goal teams must get through NCAA Regionals. In 2017, regionals will be held at Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Washington and West Virginia. The top two finishers at each regional will advance to the NCAA Championships at the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, Mo.

CONFERENCE OF CHAMPIONS
In the preseason coaches poll, the Pac-12 Conference had seven of its eight teams ranked in the Top 36, which is the number of teams that qualify to NCAA Regionals. Currently, UCLA is ranked No. 4, followed by No. 5 Utah, No. 9 Oregon State, No. 17 Washington, No. 19 California, No. 23 Arizona and Stanford is No. 33.

Click on the PDF for the full game notes.