The Azusa Pacific Acrobatics & Tumbling team held on strong in the tri-meet against the Oregon Ducks and the Quinnipiac Bobcats Monday, finishing a close second place behind the Ducks.
The Cougars beat last year’s national runner-up Quinnipiac and finished with a score of 278.36. Oregon finished with a 280.575, only a 2.215 margin difference.
“We were really strong in our tumbling events,” sophomore base/back Jamie Montgomery said. “We showed up with a lot of energy and ready to take on the first and second place teams.”
The tri-meet took place in Oregon, where the Cougars had to face the first and second national champions.
The Cougars tied the Ducks in the acrobatic event with a score of 28.05 and were behind by only .75 points at halftime, with three of six events finished.
Continuing into the fourth event of the toss section, Azusa Pacific scored 57.61 points in the tumbling event over UO’s 57.43, barely scoring enough for its first ever victory against the Ducks.
Even though the Cougars started out .45 points lower than the Ducks in this event, freshmen flyers Kalani Aguigui and Sydney Folsom, sophomore base/back Emily Sanchez and junior flyer Heather DiSpaltro tied the Ducks in the quad pass heat with 8.95 points.
Sophomore base Ahnaliese Spitzer won the aerial pass tumbling heat with a score of 9.78 and, together with Montgomery and senior flyer Jessica Laughton, won the trio pass heat with a score of 9.70 points. This put APU in the lead for the tumbling event with a score of 9.70 points and the Ducks with 9.30 points. The Ducks even fell behind Quinnipiac University, which scored 9.40 points.
The Cougar win in the tumbling event closed the gap between the three teams with just 61-hundredths of a point going into the last event of the meet.
“Oregon had never lost in tumbling before, so that was awesome for us to beat them,” Montgomery said.
The Cougars took home their win and pride in beating the national champions in the tumbling event for the first time. They were very close to winning the entire competition, but the Ducks held their ground and took first.
“Our weaknesses are just the small things like feet together and being sharp,” Montgomery said. “We only lost by two points and those two points are small things that need to be fixed.”
The Cougars are now 2-1 on the season after the split in the meet at Oregon. The Ducks took home the win and now have a record of 3-0. Qunnipiac Univerisity now holds a 2-2 record.
Azusa Pacific will host a home-opening tri-meet on Tuesday, March 18 against Baylor and the first-year program of Hawai’i Pacific.