Approximately 2,600 fans came in from the rainy and cold conditions outside into the McKale Center to support the University of Arizona GymCats Saturday at a home meet against No. 4 UCLA — the first Pac-12 conference meet of the season.
The high attendance is something head coach John Court said the team has been working on, with the help of the school’s marketing department, and said he’s very happy Tucson is showing up to support the GymCats.
Although No. 4-ranked UCLA beat Arizona 197.300-195.750, senior Madison Cindric said the crowd made the meet enjoyable.
“I love it. The energy on the floor, when you have that many people, is amazing,” Cindric said. “So, I just hope they keep coming back.”
Both Cindric and Court said the GymCats had a tough warm-up prior to Saturday’s meet, but the team was able to regroup before starting out on vault thanks, in part, to a heart-to-heart Court had with his athletes
“I’ll admit, I was not happy with the way we were warming up, but I said ‘we need to go out there and have a sense of urgency and do our type of gymnastics,’” Court said. “And that’s what we did.”
A breakdown of the scores after each event shows that the Bruins won each rotation. While the GymCats scored a total of 48.750 in vault, 49.175 at bars, 48.750 on beam and 49.075 on the floor, UCLA scored 49.300, 49.250, 49.525 and 49.225, respectably.
In the first rotation at vault, the GymCats lineup include sophomore Courtney Cowles, who hadn’t vaulted since April 2016. Then the GymCats hit a season high in their second rotation at the uneven bars. Sophomore Christina Berg and Cindric led the team with 9.875 scores.
At beam, Cindric closed out the third rotation with a solid performance, had a strong dismount and stuck her landing for a score of 9.875. And in the final event of the night, Kennady Schneider — who Court said actually has a more difficult first pass up her sleeve for later in the season — led the GymCats with a 9.900 on floor.
“It was a very solid, balanced performance — on all four events,” Court said.
Joining Cindric in all four events was sophomore Maddi Leydin, who competed in her first collegiate All-Around Saturday.
While Cindric edged out Leydin by five hundredths of a point with an overall score of 39.250, the sophomore from Melbourne, Australia, matched her career-high scores on vault and floor and got a new career high on balance beam with a score of 9.825.
“It was really good,” Leydin said. “I’m pretty happy with how it went.”
Court said he’s just happy with the way the team has been improving, and believes the GymCats are further along at this point in the season than they were last year. So he’s not bothered by the loss to UCLA.
“They can win it all. I’ve said that before,” Court said of the Bruins. “It’s the best UCLA team in 8-10 years. They don’t have a weak event.”
January has also proven to be a tough month for the GymCats. Arizona, which is ranked 17th, opened the season against Denver (No. 8), then went to Iowa (No. 12) before hosting UCLA.
The GymCats next host No. 2 Utah at 6 p.m. Friday.
But Leydin said the team isn’t focused on any numbers or rankings.
“We don’t really focus on who we’re against,” Leydin said.
“We’re just trying to compete with ourselves, basically, and get better every week and meet our team goals.”
