For the second consecutive meet, the Terrapins gymnastics team was happy with their performance on the first rotation. And for the second consecutive meet, the scores from the judges didn’t reflect that.
On Sunday, the Terps bounced back and finished second at the Pittsburgh quad meet. Saturday night, though, the scores stayed low, and the No. 25 Terps dropped their Big Ten opener at No. 23 Minnesota, 195.425-193.150.
Against the Golden Gophers (2-0, 1-0 Big Ten), the Terps (2-2, 0-1) started on the uneven bars, their best event from the season opener. They scored a 48.225, a significant decline from last meet’s 49.125, which ranked sixth nationally on the event. But coach Brett Nelligan thought his team could have been rewarded more for their efforts.
“With the exception of one fall, our performances on bar were almost identical to last week,” Nelligan said. “But the judges saw it differently.”
Through the rest of the meet, the judges continued to keep the Terps’ scores down. Nelligan said that despite not counting a fall Saturday, the Terps finished with a 193.150, more than a point lower than the 194.400 they scored at their first meet, when they did count a fall on the balance beam.
Freshman Macey Roberts, who fell on beam last weekend, had no such slip-up on Saturday and was awarded a 9.775 on the apparatus, tying for the team-high score on any event.
“All the talent is already inside of Roberts,” sophomore Abbie Epperson said. “Really the only thing she’s missing is the experience.”
Roberts received a higher score than the first meet on all three of her routines, matching her score on bars with a 9.775 on floor and adding a 9.700 on vault.
Like Roberts, Epperson also built on her season debut. Epperson, who’s competed in the all-around both meets this season after only performing on vault and bars last year, made strides on beam and floor. She posted a 9.775 on the beam and a 9.725 on the floor, despite not receiving a high score on her bars routine.
“I stuck to my own plan and moved on from the score on bars,” Epperson said. “It ended up working in my favor.”
Senior Kathy Tang’s 9.775 led the Terps on vault, where they posted a 48.325. And after being puzzled last week by the low scores on floor, the team saw some improvement with a 48.325 Saturday, compared to last weekend’s 48.025.
Though the Terps lost their conference opener, Nelligan had nothing negative to say about his team’s performance. Considering the Terps went to what Nelligan called a “tough environment” in Minnesota for their first Big Ten meet, he told his squad they had a strong outing.
“As a team, we know that low scores are going to happen,” Epperson said. “We always fight. We don’t change what we do.”
While the Terps would’ve preferred to earn higher scores, Nelligan commended the team for not letting the scores affect them negatively. And he thinks the Terps can learn an important lesson from the meet.
“We can take away that it’s out of our control,” Nelligan said. “So we focus harder on what we can control. And there’s nothing we could have done differently.”
