Gymnasts have season-best

Missouri gymnastics continues its best start since 1993, with a friday win.

By Josh Frydman
Feb. 12, 2008

Junior Adrianne Perry competes on the uneven bars on Friday night at the Hearnes Center for the second annual Beauty and the Beast competition. Missouri defeated Centenary College 195.000-192.235.

The No. 14 Missouri gymnastics team continued its weekly improvement by posting yet another season-high score Friday night en route to a 195.8-192.325 victory over the Centenary College Ladies during the second annual Beauty and the Beast match presented by MU’s gymnastics and wrestling squads.

The evening displayed a double feature event for the 6,308 fans at the Hearnes Center who watched the gymnastics team improve to 4-1 on the year during the “beauty” part of the night.

Although the women started off the night with the stage to themselves, the men began their action about midway through the gymnastics meet, with the simultaneous competition creating a hybrid atmosphere of floor and bar routines mixed in with escapes and takedowns.

“For us it feels like a postseason meet,” Missouri gymnastics coach Rob Drass said of the dual competitions, something he said reminded him of a quad or invitational meet in which four to six teams are competing on the floor at the same time. “We love the energy level. It’s a little bit of a circus act going on out there.”

The women looked like trapeze artists during the uneven bars event in which the team scored a 49.375, coming within .025 points of matching its all-time best mark.

Four Tigers either set or tied personal bests on bars, including senior Ashley Khederian and sophomore Liz Straatmann, who posted personal highs of 9.825 and 9.875, respectively.

“The team just really came through and showed off everything we had,” Straatmann said, commenting on her team’s overall performance.

The team’s dominance on bars is a testament to the squad’s continual improvement from week to week, as it had been struggling on bars in its first two meets.

“I have to give it to the coaching staff,” sophomore Sarah Shire said, in regard to the team’s turnaround on bars. “They came in after Nebraska (a loss on Jan. 25) and said this has to change.”

The team settled down, Shire said, and now the squad has great depth in bars, something Shire has attributed to the team’s recent success in the event.

“Tonight we put up two exhibitions in bars and pretty soon we’re going to have the whole team ready for bars,” she said. “I think it means a lot that nobody’s really safe.”

Shire should feel secure with her place on the team, though, as the 4-foot-11-inch sophomore from Hartsburg led the Tigers with a 39.5 all-around score, a personal best.

To complement her all-around event title, Shire won the vault and floor events, and tied for first on the balance beam, giving her a team-high 14 event titles on the season and helping Missouri to its best start since 1993.

“I feel like it’s all coming together,” Shire said. “I feel at home in this arena, feeling comfortable with the team. These girls are awesome and they made all this possible.”

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Gymnasts have season-best

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