The Pioneers Gymnastics got their 5th win of the season in a dual meet against Iowa State on February 1st. Unfortunately for the Cyclones, they are beating themselves, Denver merely had to show up.

Denver premiered new leotards in black and white with block DENVER letters in the middle back. They were a unique design with plenty of sparkle. I only wish they had incorporated crimson or gold to make them more on brand for DU.

@Denver_Gymnastics

Denver started on the vault, where only two of six vaults had a 10.0 start value: senior Kylie Rorich, who is competing a front handspring, front pike half; and freshman Shyla Bhatia, who is competing a Yurchenko 1.5. The rest of the lineup competed Yurchenko fulls, an no one could find a stick. Denver has yet to hit a 49 or higher as a team on the vault.

Over on bars, the wheels fell off before the Cyclones ever got going. Frederique Sgarbossa had a scary peel on her dismount and was carried off the floor and did not return for the rest of the meet. Iowa State had four falls off the apparatus, putting them in a hole far too deep to ever hope to climb out. This is a team that is much better on paper than their performances thus far have shown. Iowa State needs a major reboot and hopefully they can find their footing (and grips) to turn their season around.

Denver’s bars were good, but again they struggled to stick landings. They had a few mistakes here and there, but the dismount landings are still not there. Maddison Reidenbach had a fall, but her score was able to be dropped. DU hit a season high bars team score of 49.15. That could easily be a 49.5 with more stuck landings. I saw them stick in warm-ups so this team can do it.

Without Sgarbossa, Iowa State only had five vaulters; they had to go five up five count. Iowa State didn’t have any falls on vault, so that was good for them.

Third rotation was beam for DU and floor for ISU. Denver had a season low beam team score, but avoided counting a fall from Reidenbach.  ISU on the floor, broke 49 on a team event score for the first time all season with a 49.15.  However, even with that high, the Cyclones still struggled. Peyton Nock had two falls and a start value of only 9.3. This team really needs to get six good routines so they only drop a low, not simply avoid disaster.

In dual meets, there is always music playing during each gymnasts’ beam routine to avoid awkward silence in the arena. For home meets, each DU gymnast selects what song she would like playing as background music. Gymnasts often select something that calms them, makes them confident, or gives them good flow on the beam. When the opposing team is on the beam, the meet hosts play popular chill or acoustic music. But not at Magness. In a snicker-inducing musical decision, our DJ played ’80s soft rock while ISU competed. Now I know it wasn’t a coincidence at the first home meet when Stanford got some pretty lame songs. I for one, love the small psychological advantage given to the home team in this subtle way.

In Tom Green-Parrot hype guy fashion, the Floor Party in Magness began prior to the last rotation. Our in-house DJ had the crowd practice the whistle-prompted “Let’s Go DU!” and everyone was on their feet dancing as the team warmed up.  Denver had an outstanding rotation, and got their second season-high event score of the night with a 49.5. Denver will certainly improve their floor ranking with that performance.

In the end, Denver won 196.525 to 192.55. A win by four points is a huge amount in Division 1 gymnastics. But at this point in the season, wins and losses don’t count for anything. The Road To Nationals is based on average team scores, not wins. So this loss for Iowa State was so much worse because it won’t help their average. Denver, on the other hand, improved their season average very slightly. But when other teams are hitting new highs, DU is maintaining. Denver drops one spot in national rankings this week to #18.