Cliff Kirkpatrick

The No. 8-ranked Oregon State gymnastics team hopes Friday’s rough outing at Louisiana State serves as the final wake-up call so the Beavers finish the season strong. It has been a tough stretch of three straight road meets as they went 1-2.

“There were some great performances, but unfortunately Makayla (Stambaugh) had an off day and Jen (Kesler) had an off day on beam, and Whitney (Watson) started us off with a fall,” coach Tanya Chaplin said Monday. “With all those falls and deductions, that took us out of the running. Without those it would have been a very close meet.”

A trip to No. 9 Utah on Friday against the Utes, No. 18 Penn State and No. 21 Southern Utah is next. The final home meet is against No. 15 Kentucky on March 19.

“Hopefully, we’ll come back and rebound from this,” Chaplin said. “Our focus is to do a few more things and change how a few of them are thinking going into a meet, especially the freshmen to help them close to the postseason.”

What’s been going on with them?

“Sometimes I think they take on too much of the-score-counts-for-everything (mentality) instead of relaxing and staying focused,” Chaplin said. “They think about the uncontrollables.”

What happened with Stambaugh falling? Is she still having issues with the ankle?

“She’s good,” Chaplin said. “We talked a lot after the meet. We have a good plan moving forward with her.”

Is she hitting that wall you talked about that all freshmen do, no matter how good they are?

“She may have a little bit,” Chaplin said. “You can see her changing, too, a little bit, especially the last month. You just don’t know what to expect your first year. It’s a much longer season than club season. How to balance that out, how to keep your emotions going week after week to get up for a competition like that is very different from what club athletes go through. It’s managing the emotion, school and everything else.”

Kelsi Blalock (ankle) and Leilani Alferos (bicycle accident) remain out. Blalock will miss her sixth meet and Alferos is out for her third.

“They are still plugging away,” Chaplin said. “They are getting better but the are not ready to come back, yet.”

That means OSU only has 10 active gymnastics again, but others are healing. Leslie Mak (elbow) is ready to come back on the bars if needed. Laura-Ann Chong (back) is coming back on the floor.

And check out some more video from the LSU meet. The top one is the bars routine. The bottom the beam.

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The No. 3 Oregon State gymnastics team lost to No. 9 UCLA on the road Sunday afternoon 197.375-196.325.

Makayla Stambaugh was scratched from the floor and beam due to a knee and foot injury that occurred during the uneven bars. She hit her knee on the low bar during the mount, then hit her toe in the routine and did not finish. She came back to vault, but couldn’t continue after that.

Leslie Mak returned to the floor lineup for a 9.775. It was her first time back since Jan. 16 at Ohio State when she hurt her elbow.

Mandi Rodriguez tied for first on the vault (49.075) and won the beam with a career-high 9.900. She was third in the all-around.

“We had too many mental errors early in the meet and you can’t do that and expect a big score,” coach Tanya Chaplin said. “I’m glad that we were able to finish well. We showed some determination and really looked good on the beam. We have a few more meets on the road to really show who we are. We should keep getting healthier with Kelsi (Blalock) (ankle) getting closer to returning and we’ll need Makayla to return too. But overall, we just need to compete better from the beginning.”

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The Oregon State gymnastics team moved up to No. 3 in the nation after last weekend’s performance. Rankings are still based on average scores.

OSU’s average is 196.129. Alabama (196.575) and Oklahoma (196.563) are ahead of the Beavers.

How teams are ranked will change as soon as every team has enough data for a regional qualifying score (RQS). Three away meets are needed.

As for the individual disciplines, the Beavers are tied for No. 4 on the vault (49.133), tied for No. 5 on the beam (49.013), No. 8 on the bars (48.854) and No. 3 on the floor (49.126).

Mandi Rodriguez is tied for No. 9 on the all-around (39.308) and Makayla Stambaugh is No. 13 (39.254). Rodriguez is tied for No. 5 on the vault (9.888) and Becky Colvin is No. 8 (9.879).

Leslie Mak is tied for No. 1 on the bars (9.925) and Laura-Ann Chong is No. 10 (9.867). Rodriguez, Stambaugh and Melanie Jones are tied for third on the floor (9.900).

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