The little things escaped ASU gymnastics Monday night as it opened Pac-12 action against Washington at Wells Fargo Arena.
The Gym Devils stuck with the Huskies throughout the entire meet, but mistakes on both beam and bars cost ASU as they fell 194.650-192.450.
“We are definitely a much better team than what we competed tonight,” ASU head coach René Lyst said. “We’ve been training great, but we definitely have some things to work on.”
In the opening rotation, ASU senior Taylor Allex scored a 9.900 on vault, the highest vault score of the night. This helped the team outscore Washington, which was competing on bars in the first rotation, 48.500-48.350.
Washington took the lead in the second rotation as the Gym Devils struggled on bars. Senior Carissa Kraus scored a 8.150 as a result of two falls, and freshman Eileen Imbus put up 8.875 from one fall.
“I think we got a little bit tight on bars,” Lyst said. “It kind of got carried over to beam, which is not unusual, but to be competitive you have to be better than that and that is something we should be better at.”
A fall from Allex on beam was the fourth fall of the night for the Gym Devils.
The mistake on beam didn’t affect her in the next event, however, as she came out and scored her second 9.900 of the night on floor.
Allex has been competing in three events this despite competing seven times in the all-around last season.
“I’m doing what I can to help out the team,” Allex said. “That’s honestly all that I should be doing right now, is putting scores up for the team.”
Freshman Katelyn Lentz scored a career-high on beam with a score of 9.800. However, this and Allex' floor routine weren't enough to push the Gym Devils ahead. Washington won 194.650-192.450.
Freshman Morgan Wilson came in second to Washington senior Allison Northey in the all-around competition 39.175-38.700.
“It was exciting to get to be an all-arounder,” Wilson said. “I know there are places I can improve, which is promising to know this isn’t my best performance.”
Last week, Lentz and senior Allie Salas competed in the all-around. This week it was Wilson and Salas.
Lyst said that the athletes she selects to compete in all-around will depend on who's scoring well and who's healthy.
“We wanted to get some different people experience on events they didn’t do last week to see how they did under pressure, what they would score, what their scoring potential would be," Lyst said. "I think in the next two weeks, we’ll start to solidify some lineups."
Reach the reporter at haley.stesiak@asu.edu or follow @haley_stesiak on Twitter.
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