Cliff Kirkpatrick

The No. 5 Oregon State gymnastics team didn’t have its best meet of the season, but the Beavers defeated No. 20 Washington with ease Friday night in Gill Coliseum.

The Beavers improved to 5-0 and 1-0 in the Pacific-10 Conference. The Huskies were ranked No. 20 but had a tough all-around meet. Here’s a link to the story of the meet in Saturday’s GT.

“It went fairly well,” all-around winner Makayla Stambaugh said. “We had some bumps in the road, but we finished well on the floor. We had a couple falls, a couple of mistakes. That’s going to happen. We just have to go back to the gym and work on those mistakes and hope for the best in the next competition.”

Vault

The Beavers took the lead after the first event, the vault, thanks the struggles of the Huskies on the uneven bars, 49.250-47.200.

“For the most part, there are few things,” coach Tanya Chaplin said of if she was happy with the vaults. “We need to get a couple of our reserve kids to 10.0 vaults. We need to have all six 10.0 vaults to compete with the top in the country.”

Becky Colvin tied a career-high with a 9.900. Mandi Rodriguez had a stellar 9.950. Check out Stephanie McGregor on the vault in the above video. She scored 9.825.

Bars

The Beavers maintained the lead after two events, 97.650-95.750. The bars were little tougher with Stambaugh getting the top score of 9.850. The Huskies continued their struggles on the vault.

“You can’t really say the reason for mistakes,” Stambaugh said. “They could be brain farts or something. We just have to remain confident and trust in our training.”

“There were some fluky mistakes,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve been looking strong on the bars. It won’t be an ongoing issue.”

Check out the above video of Jen Kesler on the bars. She scored a 9.800.

Beam

Leslie Mak made the lineup for this event despite her sprained elbow. Mak altered her routine Thursday so she did not use her arms.

“She should be able to use her arm in the next few weeks, but we are going to take it slow so we don’t have a tear that would end her season,” Chaplin said.

The team improved its average and extended the lead through three events. The team score was 48.800 in the event, and under the circumstances that was solid.

“Even on beam I would like to see more confidence,” Chaplin said. “They are a stronger beam team. They need 49-plus on that event.”

Stambaugh scored the best with a 9.875. Check out the above video of Rodgriguez on the beam. She scored a 9.750.

Floor

As promised from the last meet, here is Laura-Ann Chong’s routine on the floor because I like the guitar riff, but she’s obscured by teammate surrounding mat. She scored a 9.850.

Olivia Vivian tore the house down against. She had a career-high 9.800. To make up for the bad view on Chong, here’s Stambaugh on the floor.

“They came back super strong on floor, and I wanted to see what they were made of,” Chaplin said.

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