Jan. 21, 2017
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State women's gymnastics team (4-1, 1-1 Big Ten) captured a 195.525-194.725 victory over Maryland (1-4, 0-2 Big Ten) in a Big Ten contest inside Rec Hall Saturday afternoon. Junior Briannah Tsang (Vancouver, British Columbia) captured her seventh career all-around title in the meet.
"I'm just really proud of the girls, we basically did everything we wanted to do tonight, the goal was to go out and hit all of our routines," head coach Jeff Thompson said. "We only had a couple of mistakes and we know that we can fix those because they do well on those events every day in practice. All in all we started with great energy and we ended with great energy in front of a great crowd with our men. I couldn't be more proud of our team, I'm looking forward to next week."
As a team, the Nittany Lions captured the vault title (48.875), the uneven bars title (49.100) and the floor exercise title (49.050). Penn State's team score of 195.525 Saturday is a season-best score.
Individually, the Nittany Lions won outright or a shared a title on all four events. Three Nittany Lions competed in the all-around Saturday with Tsang taking the top spot (39.325), followed by freshman Kristen Politz (Morganville, N.J.) tying her career-best score of 39.050 for second-place and sophomore Sabrina Garcia (Etters, Pa.) placing third with a season-best 38.725.
The Nittany Lions opened the meet with a season-best 48.875 on the vault. For the Blue & White on the vault, Tsang took the top spot with her score of 9.825. Tsang's vault title was the second of the season and the ninth of her career.
Along with Tsang on the vault, Emma Sibson (Allen, Texas) tied for second-place with a 9.800, while three Nittany Lions tied for fourth-place. The trio of Garcia, Gianna LaGuardia (Thornton, Colo.) and Politz each scored a 9.750 to round out the scoring for PSU on the vault.
Penn State then moved to the uneven bars where they posted a season-best 49.100 as a group. On the uneven bars, Garcia and Tsang went 1-2, as Garcia tied her career-best score of 9.950, which she set in the season-opener, to capture the uneven bars title. Garcia's score of 9.950 tied the No. 3 performance in school history. Also on the uneven bars, Tsang tallied a runner-up finish with her season-best mark of 9.900.
On the balance beam for the Blue & White, Tsang tied for her second event title of the day with a 9.825 on the apparatus. Senior Nicole Medvitz (Paramus, N.J.) finished third in the balance beam standings with a 9.775. As a group the Nittany Lions tallied a 48.500 on the balance beam.
The Nittany Lions closed out the meet with a season-best score of 49.050 on the floor exercise. On the floor exercise, three Penn Staters tied for the event title, as Garcia, and Politz and Peyton Schuller (Erie, Pa.) each posted a 9.825. In her junior season debut, Oni Timothy (Rochester, N.Y.) tied for fourth-place on the floor exercise with a 9.800.
Penn State heads to Champaign, Ill., for a Big Ten meet against Illinois on Sunday, Jan. 29. The meet is slated for a 3 p.m. (EST) start inside Huff Hall.