The North Carolina gymnastics team traveled to George Washington to compete in the 10th Annual Lindsey Ferris Invitational against George Washington, Cornell and Penn on Saturday. UNC ended the meet in third place with a score of 192.300, only 2.925 points behind George Washington’s first-place finish.
What happened?
North Carolina started out the meet with the floor exercise. Junior Morgan Lane and first-year Khazia Hislop scored 9.850 and 9.800 respectively, helping UNC tie for second place at the end of the first rotation. Although the team scored relatively well, head coach Derek Galvin expects more for the rest of the season.
“It wasn’t as strong as we expected,” Galvin said. “During the second event, which was vault, we refocused and stayed in the moment. For the freshmen, there’s no real way to prepare for the loud environment as all four events are going on at once.”
The second rotation was filled with power, characterized with scores above 9.600. Notable performances by junior Madison Nettles, first-year Alexis Allen and sophomore Madison Hargrave, who all scored above 9.700, weren’t enough to push the Tar Heels to first. Instead, the team fell to third place with a score of 96.475.
UNC carried the strong momentum into the third rotation, bars, where junior Kaitlynn Hedelund led the team with a score of 9.825 — 0.075 off from her career-high 9.9 set at the Lindsey Ferris Invitational last year. These high-scoring performances weren’t enough to push the Tar Heels to second place, but the effort closed the gap between to a .125 difference.
The fourth rotation, beam, wasn’t as high scoring for UNC. Throughout the event, the Tar Heels wavered between third and fourth place, as four of the six scores fell between 8.3 and 9.25. First-year Emma Marchese and Lane’s high-scoring performances solidified UNC’s third-place finish.
Who stood out?
Multiple Tar Heels tied or even topped personal bests during the meet.
