The No. 2 Ducks (5-1) concluded their homestand meets of the 2019 season with a 278.620-269.255 win over the No. 3 Azusa Pacific Cougars (4-2) Saturday night to heighten the celebration of Oregon’s senior night. Their win completes Oregon’s sweep of APU in the 2019 season.
“Tonight was fun,” Oregon head coach Keenyn Won said. “There’s always a ton of emotion around senior night, but I’m proud of this team for pulling out the win. We had a quite a few new combinations of athletes competing throughout the meet tonight, and although we didn’t have a perfect meet, there were a lot of highs.”
Oregon opened the meet recording scores of 9.90 in two of the four heats of the compulsory event, defeating APU, 38.15-37.05. However, the Ducks’ lead in the meet score didn’t last long as APU responded by winning the following event.
APU’s only event win came in the acro event, winning 29.40-27.75 over the Ducks, despite Oregon’s near-perfect score of 9.95 in the 5-element heat.
In the pyramid event, the Ducks earned another near-perfect score in the open pyramid to reach a 29.65 event score. Yet, the Cougars’ own score of 29.45 kept APU above the Ducks going into intermission 95.90-95.55 in the overall meet scores.
After the break, Oregon swept the remaining three events to help propel the team to its meet victory. The Ducks took home wins in both the toss event, 28.55-28.15, and in the tumbling event, 56.15-55.77.
In the final event of the night, the Ducks dominated the team event, winning with a score of 98.37-89.43 over the Cougars.
“I was extremely proud of our acro seven-element heat and trio tumbling pass as those are two heats we’ve had mistakes in previously this season,” Won said. “This team continues to impress me, and we’re not done yet.”
Oregon celebrated its seven seniors, TJ McCourt, Megan Barney, Hannah Blair, Casi Jackson, Samantha Little, Caroline Matos and Tia Thomas, as they closed out their careers at Matthew Knight Arena.
The Ducks will conclude their regular season competition in next week’s meet against the No. 1 Baylor Bears. Oregon and Baylor will meet for the second time this season on Sunday, April 7 at 10 a.m. in Waco, Texas.
Follow Maggie Vanoni on Twitter @maggie_vanoni
