Feb. 5, 2010
COLUMBIA, Mo. – After a tough meet last week against Big 12 rival Nebraska, the No. 14 Missouri Tigers (5-1) are ready to rebound this week against New Hampshire (7-0) at the fourth annual Beauty and the Beast meet. The gymnastics team will take on the Wildcats of New Hampshire, while the wrestling team duals against the Sooners of Oklahoma at the same time on the Hearnes Center floor.
The Missouri gymnastics team is 3-0 all time at Beauty and the Beast and Head Coach Rob Drass is looking for his team to continue that trend.
“New Hampshire is a quality team,” Drass said. “They are represented at the NCAA Regional competition every year, so I think again we have a very good team coming in. We will need to do a good job if we expect to come out on the winning side.”
The Tigers fought hard against No. 10 Nebraska last Saturday in the first two rotations but were not able to hold off the Cornhuskers. At the halfway point, the two teams were tied at 97.500 apiece. The final score of 194.700-193.275 marked the first loss of the season for Missouri who is now 1-1 in conference competition.
“I think that what we took from last week is what we can improve upon,” Drass said. “Anytime you have a meet you're not happy with, you want to learn something from it and then attack what needs to be fixed, dump the rest and move on. In the end, the goal for us this week is to get back on track and hit the routines we are capable of hitting.”
Despite the loss, the meet against the Cornhuskers had several bright spots. Senior All-American Sarah Shire (Columbia, Mo.) earned her second all-around title of the year (15th of her career) and won the vault, beam and floor titles. Shire has won the beam title in every meet so far this season. The Tigers also swept the podium on vault and in the all-around. Junior Alex Gold (Plano, Texas) and freshman Lauren Swankoski (Chadds Ford, Pa.) tied for second on vault, while sophomore Mary Burke (Inverness, Ill.) took second in the all-around with Swankoski in third.
Stay tuned to mutigers.com for news and updates from the fourth annual Beauty and the Beast meet. The gymnastics portion in scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., while the wrestlers will take the mat at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for youth. Admission will be free with the donation of two cans of food for the Central Missouri Food Bank.
Scouting New Hampshire (7-0)
The New Hampshire Wildcats (7-0) have had a great season so far with wins over Rutgers, Ball State, Yale and rival Pittsburgh. The team posted a season-high 195.000 in the second week of the season at their own UNH Invitational. The Wildcats are averaging a team score of 193.381 and are sitting just outside the top 25 at No. 27. UNH has looked strong on beam and floor so far this year where they are ranked No. 19 and No. 12, respectively. The Wildcats have seen solid work from junior Chelsea Steinberg who is currently ranked 14th nationally in the all-around. Steinberg is also tied for 30th on beam and for 22nd on floor. Missouri and UNH last meet at the 2009 Northeast Regional where the Tigers (196.000) finished third and the Wildcats (193.650) finished fifth. Missouri leads the all-time series 11-4.
Beauty and the Beast history
The Missouri gymnastics team is 3-0 all-time at Beauty and the Beast, while the wrestling team is 2-1. Last year, the team posted a 196.625 against Illinois that marked the second-highest home score in program history. The team beam score of 49.250 is the fifth highest score in the record books. In 2008, the team posted a 49.375 on bars to go down as the second-highest score on the event. The Tigers average a score of 195.773 at the event. A record 6,308 people came out to watch the second annual Beauty and the Beast meet. It is the largest non-Cat Classic crowd in Missouri gymnastics history and the 12th largest all-time crowd. The average crowd is 5,551 people.
Date Opponent Score
2/9/07 SEMO W: 194.775-192.700
2/8/08 Centenary W: 195.800-192.325
2/13/09 Illinois W: 196.625-195.000
Tigers averaging highest score in six years
Missouri is currently averaging a team score of 195.006 after just four weeks of competition, that is the highest the Tigers have averaged at this point in the season in six years. In 2004, Missouri had averaged a 195.888 after four meets. From 2005-2009 the Tigers did not average over a 195.000 in the first four weeks. The 2004 squad posted the highest home team score (197.350) in program history during the fifth week of the season on Feb. 6, 2004. This Saturday marks the fifth week of competition for the 2010 season, as well as the sixth anniversary of that record score.