Follow Live Updates during the Big 10 Championships
For #15 ranked Penn State, the goal last weekend was to qualify for the evening session of the Big 10 Championships hosted here this weekend. However, the only way to do that was to upset either #8 Michigan or #13 Minnesota at the Big 10 Quad Meet held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
But as some would say, the odds were not in their favor. Michigan is the highest ranked school in the Big 10 conference and teams tend to perform better at home, making it unlikely for Penn State to upset the higher ranked team. In addition, Penn State had the rotation draw as the 3rd ranked team at the meet to start off on the Balance Beam, which is a rotation many coaches would rather not have. However, Jeff Thompson, head coach of the Nittany Lions, was pleased with the draw. At the meet, Thompson said “It has been one of our better events this year” and that “the team wanted to compete ‘free’ and do what they knew how to do.” And they did just that.
They had their second best beam score of the year, a 49.225, highlighted by Kassidy Stauder’s 9.9 and Sidney Sanabria-Robles’ season high of 9.875. This put them in first place after the first rotation, an outcome that surprised Thompson.
The team then went to floor and hit all 6 routines scoring a team score of 49.125 with two top scores of 9.85 by Lindsay Musgrove and Krystal Welsh.
Continuing on to vault where the judging was quite tough, the Nittany Lions managed a 49.025 where Emma Sibson and Krystal Welsh each managed a 9.825.
The story of the third rotation, as Penn State went to vault however, was Michigan on the Balance Beam. Michigan’s first two competitors each had solid routines, but the next two competitors each fell twice in their routines, making for a very low score.
This allowed the Nittany Lions to upset Michigan and qualify to the evening session at home.
This weekend, the #14 ranked Nittany Lions will begin on the Floor Exercise at 5:00 pm EST in Rec Hall. Joining them in the evening session will be #9 Nebraska beginning on the Vault, #13 Illinois on the Uneven Bars and #16 Minnesota on the Balance Beam.
The afternoon session will consist of #8 Michigan on Vault, Iowa on the Uneven Bars, #24 Ohio State on Balance Beam and Michigan State on Floor Exercise beginning at 12:00 pm EST.
Both sessions will be aired live but I will also be live blogging the afternoon session here for Gymnastike. Make sure to tune in for all of the action at these Big 10 Championships.