Coming off of its season-opening win against Concordia, Oregon acrobatics and tumbling kicked off their first home meet with a victory against Hawaii Pacific. The day ended 267.595-280.100 favoring the Ducks at Matthew Knight Arena on Friday night.
The Ducks won the compulsory event in rocky fashion and recorded a score of 38.45, while 38.30 was put up by Hawaii Pacific. The Ducks swept the first two rounds, winning each heat.
“We definitely started off rough in the compulsory event, but we talked about leaving that in compulsory’s, and turning it around going in to the next part of the meet,” head coach Keenyn Won said. “I think the girls had a ton of energy tonight. We got to execute all the things we wanted to execute, and we worked on a lot of changes from our meet on Monday.”
In the second event, the Ducks kept with trend of sweeping heats, and went on to extend their lead to a flat 68, as the Sharks trailed with a total of 66.85
Before going into halftime, Oregon took the pyramid event with a nearly perfect score of 29.50. The Sharks attempted a comeback but finished the pyramid event with a score of 28.40. The Ducks put together a first half total of 97.50, and the Sharks followed with a score of 95.25.
“I definitely felt like we were on the same page,” Katie Bachman said. “We felt really connected, and we had a really good spirit out there. We weren’t perfect tonight, but we definitely can build on this.”
After hitting their stride early in the first half, the Ducks kept that same pace straight away to begin the second half.
The Ducks swept heats yet again in the toss event, the final score being 29.10-27.50. This advanced team meet totals to 122.75- 126.60 favoring Oregon.
Oregon saw its first slip up in the tumbling event, where in heat one of duo’s, freshman Caitlynn Emick slipped off of the end of the mat after her last rotation. It was not long before the Ducks regained balance in heat two, putting together a nearly perfect trio score. Oregon did just the same in its quad heat of tumbling.
The Sharks took its first heat in the first heat of the tumbling event, with a score of 8.95 over Oregon’s 8.80. Besides first heat, the Ducks took all other heats in the tumbling event.
The team event was by far the most energized performance of the night. The Sharks of Hawaii Pacific and Oregon finished with the score, 97.20-90.77 in the Ducks’ favor.
The final meet total left the Ducks towering the Sharks 280.100-267.595. This marks the second win of the Ducks’ 2018 season, and the team is still looking forward to all of the competitors they have yet to face.
“We want to take every competitor,” Won said. “We told ourselves we are going to continue to increase our scores every single meet. That is our goal. …We have two hard weeks ahead of us before we see Baylor.”
With nothing but preparation time, the Ducks now begin training for the team’s next meet in against Baylor in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 5 p.m. PT.
Follow Jack Taylor on Twitter @taylorjack36