Three takeaways after Iowa State gymnastics knocks off Iowa and Missouri
March 9, 2018
Iowa State gymnastics entered its final regular-season home meet staring down stout competition.
Meaghan Sievers snags a pair of 9.900s
“[My focus is] something that I’ve definitely had to work on, personally. I get so excited about just being here and being with the team and being in this atmosphere,” Sievers said. “Sometimes adrenaline gets the best of me.”
Sievers reigned in her adrenaline on Friday, completing the meet with one of her best performances at Iowa State.
The junior from Gary, South Dakota delivered a 9.900 on the uneven bars for the Cyclones.
A 9.900 — a threshold score for a dominant performance — was matched by Iowa’s Nicole Chow.
Sievers is typically a force on the vault, earning two 9.900s this season with a top score of 9.925 at West Virginia. Sievers has competed in every vault event in her Iowa State career.
Even though Sievers is a well-known vaulter, the junior was feeling it on the bars.
To close the tri-meet, Sievers placed an exclamation mark on her meet. Iowa State’s final event, the floor, was essentially the Cyclones’ success, and Sievers was a catalyst to that production.
Sievers tagged another 9.900 to her score, pushing her personal score to 39.425 — the top individual score of the meet.
“I saw some amazing focus [from Sievers],” said coach Jay Ronayne. “Her beam warm-up was horrendous, she was all over the place.
“It looked like someone was shaking the beam on her. When [it was] time to compete it looked like you couldn’t push her off the beam. That says something.”
Cyclones close out the night with a smooth floor routine
Iowa State’s highest floor score entering the meet with Missouri and Iowa was 49.175. The Cyclones shattered that score, improving with a 49.450 on Friday night.
Leading the charge for Iowa State was senior Haylee Young with a meet-high score of 9.925. Immediately at the conclusion of Young’s performance, Iowa State coach Jay Ronayne threw his fists in the air and high-fived Young.
Young’s team sprinted to the corner of the mat and swarmed the senior on her regular-season home finale.
“Building up to the routine, my teammates had amazing floor routines and that really got me going,” Young said. “I was so proud of them, so to be able to come through for them was really what I wanted to do.”
Before Young’s stellar floor routine, Sievers finished with a 9.900 score. With Young and Sievers placing the Cyclones in the driver’s seat, the rest of the team needed to round out the team score with solid scores.
The other four were clutch.
Sophomore Molly Russ, freshman Ariana Orrego, senior Briana Ledesma and senior Kelsey Paz mirrored each other’s scores with the quartet scoring four 9.875’s.
“We haven’t hit on every cylinder for floor,” Sievers said. “We’ve been close and we’ve had a couple routines here and there that show that shining light, but tonight everyone did phenomenal.”
Fan Support
Final home competitions for seniors are always important to the competitors. Friday night was no different.
Fans in cardinal and gold showed up to support the Cyclone gymnasts with 2,382 fans in attendance. In return, the gymnasts turned in one of the best Iowa State team performances in the last decade.
