Jan. 24, 2014
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; January 24, 2014 - After their best overall performance to date in their home opener last weekend, the Penn State women's gymnastics team will travel to Jenison Field House to open their Big Ten schedule against Michigan State.
The Nittany Lions (6-1, 0-0) are coming off of their best team performance of the season, defeating Cornell, Southeast Missouri State and UIC with a season-high team score of 196.025.
That score was helped by a multitude of career-best performances, including five career-best scores on the floor exercise to help the team post and ninth highest score in school history. Krystal Welsh (Bowie, Md.) scored 9.925 to win the floor exercise in the quad meet, while Lindsay Musgrove (League City, Texas) hit a 9.900 routine, followed by a 9.875 from Randi Lau (Honolulu, Hawaii) and 9.850 scores from Samantha Musto (Mays Landing, N.J.) and Sidney Sanabria-Robles (Cagaus, Puerto Rico).
The floor exercise has been the top event for the Blue and White this season; entering this weekend ranked 15th nationally with a scoring average of 48.975 on the event.
Senior Kassidy Stauder (Palmerton, Pa.) currently ranks 24th nationally in the all-around with a 39.100 average in two competitions. She set a career-best in winning the all-around last weekend in the home opener, scoring 9.725 or better on all four events to log a score of 39.275. She won the uneven bars with a career-best mark of 9.875 and topped the balance beam charts with another career-high score of 9.900.
Penn State has also been solid this season on the vault, owning a 48.725 average through three meets. The lineup is led by freshman Emma Sibson (Allen, Texas), who won her first career individual title last weekend with a vault of 9.850. The rookie owns a season-high average of 9.767 on the vault this season, just ahead of Lau's 9.758. Musgrove and Welsh are just behind with a 9.733 average in three vaults in 2014.
Michigan State will compete at home for the third straight weekend, dropping decisions to Illinois in the season opener and Pittsburgh last weekend. The Spartans enter this weekend with a team scoring average of 193.338, compared to 194.642 for Penn State, and are led by sophomore Lisa Burt. The second-year Spartan is averaging 38.537 in the all-around and has the team's second highest average on the uneven bars (9.775) and floor exercise (9.688).
The Big Ten opener is the first of two straight road meets for Penn State, who will travel to Columbus, Ohio to face Ohio State next weekend. The Nittany Lions will take on the Buckeyes on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 4 p.m.
For information on purchasing 2014 season tickets or Big Ten and NCAA Regional Championship tickets fans can visit http://www.gopsusports.com/tickets/w-gym-tickets.html or call 1-800-NITTANY weekdays from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
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