Maryland gymnastics had a nightmare performance on beam cost at the Big Ten Championships.
Lauren Brendlinger and Layla Hammer both lost their balance and hopped off the apparatus, resulting in the unit’s worst score in over a month and forcing Maryland to count a major deduction at the conference tournament.
On Wednesday, the beam lineup avoided falls altogether, tallying a 49.000 score in the first round of the NCAA Regionals on Wednesday. The routines guided Maryland as it defeated West Virginia 196.250 to 195.325 in University Park to advance to the second round.
“[Brendlinger] and [Hammer] took it hard after Big Tens,” coach Brett Nelligan said. “They don’t want to let their teammates down, so I feel like they came into this meet with some redemption on their mind.”
Brendlinger and Hammer rebounded with scores of over 9.700. Natalie Martin and Maddie Komoroski elevated the lineup’s score in the fifth and sixth spots with a 9.850 and 9.900, respectively.
Alexa Rothenbuescher faced the Terps’ lone major deduction after wobbling and shaking her arms, disrupting the fluidity of her first series. Maryland dropped the all-arounder’s 9.550.
Aside from beam, the Terps posted their second-best meet score of the year behind consistency across all four events.
Nelligan has implored the team all season to prioritize executing clean routines, rather than obsessing over scores. Though Wednesday marked the first meet where opponents’ scores mattered to the Terps, they remained focused.
“You want to separate yourself from the other team because it’s win to advance,” Nelligan said. “And I thought they did a really great job of not focusing on those scores, not worrying about their opponent, just focusing on us.”
[Sierra Kondo stars on bars after monthlong hiatus for Maryland gymnastics]
Maryland’s first two gymnasts on vault had minor miscues that dropped their scores below 9.800. Sophomore Logan Buckmon took a small step forward after an initially clean landing, while freshman Rayna Engelmayer slightly hopped forward.
The lineup continued its consistency, but minor errors prevented the Terps from breaking 9.800. Rhea LeBlanc underrotated and leaned forward, nearly losing her balance on her landing, leading to a 9.625 that Maryland would drop.
Martin, the team’s leader in vault national qualifying score, anchored the unit with 9.850. The sophomore performed one of two routines in the lineup with a starting value of 10, meaning her routine is more difficult but maximizes the number of possible points.
Fueled by consistency and a standout score from Martin, the Terps posted a 48.850 — inline with their vault scores from the past month — and took a small lead over West Virginia after one rotation.
Bars has become Maryland’s highest-ranked event at 25th nationally, but the lineup has been scorching since March 1. Their lowest score since then is 48.975, and though they were missing NQS leader Sierra Kondo, they parlayed that momentum into another elite showing on Wednesday.
“Sticks are contagious” is a common, almost cliche, adage in the gymnastics world, but the Terps proved it right in the second rotation.
[Maryland gymnastics scores 195.700 to finish last in session at Big Ten Championships]
Victoria Gatzendorfer stuck her landing and scored 9.825, her best since March 1. All five gymnasts on bars followed the senior with clean landings of their own. While only Martin scored above 9.800 on vault, all six gymnasts surpassed that mark on bars.
“With the way [Gatzendorfer] got us started with that routine, you know, you just got a feeling we were going to do something special,” Nelligan said. “I mean, they were just lights out.”
The bars lineup notched its fifth consecutive event score of over 49.000, a streak now nearing an entire month.
Junior Taylor Rech has energized the floor unit from the first spot for much of the year. Rech sets the tone, and if she performs well, the rest of the lineup typically does too.
Rech posted her highest score since Feb. 21 and the rest of the unit fed off of that momentum.
The four other gymnasts scored 9.800 or above, clinching a Maryland victory before the anchor spot and allowing the Terps to rest Alexa Rothenbuescher. The floor unit scored 49.250, its best event score in nearly a month and the Terps’ highest of the day.
Maryland stays in University Park and faces the grandest stage of its season tomorrow: a quad meet in the second round of the Pennsylvania Regionals against No. 1 LSU, No. 16 Arkansas and Michigan.
