Terps Earn NCATA's Best Score
March 9, 2012
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The Maryland acrobatics and tumbling team earned the best overall score in NCATA history Friday night, beating Quinnipiac in College Park. The Terps (2-0) earned a score of 290.560 to the Bobcats' 283.00.
Maryland won five out of the six events in their first meet since their season opener at Quinnipiac on Feb. 4. Their tumbling score of 58.05 is also a new NCATA record.
"It was challenging for us to keep up the intensity when we had a month between our first two meets," head coach Laura Chiriaco said. "I'm really proud of the way the team was able to execute. We pushed our difficulty value even further than we did our first meet and it really paid off."
The teams started on the compulsory round. The Terps scored a 38.8 to narrowly beat the Bobcats' 38.7.
Moving on to the acro or stunt event, Maryland's 27.85 beat Quinnipiac's 27.44.
"The partner stunt group of Lauren Shannon, Erin Cahill, Brittany Burkhard and Lindsey Kaufmann was great. Those bases were textbook," Chiriaco said.
"I was especially proud of the stunt group of Ali Iovino, Casey Lynch, Krista Breitzman and Brittany Bartko. We just put Casey in that group last week because of an injury. They didn't miss a beat and hit all of their skills. They were the definition of great athletes fighting through anything."
The pyramid heat was the one event the Bobcats won, 29.70 to 29.55, but Maryland still took a 96.20 to 95.84 lead into halftime.
Coming out of the break, Maryland began to pull away in the toss event. Two of the Terps' three toss heats earned perfect scores, one earned a 10 out of 10, to win the event 29.50 to 28.70.
In the tumbling event, Brooke Grohol earned a perfect 10 out of 10 for her solo pass. The Terps' combined score of 58.05 beat their score of 57.45 - the NCATA record they set last month.
"Brooke had two perfect scores today - her basket and her tumbling pass, so we're really excited for her," Chiriaco said.
In their team routine, Maryland earned a 106.56 to Quinnipiac's 101.66.
"We really focused on team routine these past couple weeks and I think it showed. They really brought it home in that event," Chiriaco said.
Next, the Terrapins head south to take on Fairmont State, Oregon and Quinnipiac March 17 at 5 p.m. in Rome, Ga.
