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Aggie gymnasts looking to equalize against Southern Utah and Denver

February 27th, 2015 Posted in Sports

The Utah State University women’s gymnastics team posted its second best overall score of the season on Feb. 20 — but it wasn’t enough to beat Southern Utah University. Tonight the Aggies will get a chance to equalize.

Utah State will face SUU and Denver University in the Centrum Arena in Cedar City, Utah, just one week after losing 196.225 to 195.025 to Southern at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in Logan.

“We performed extremely well last week,” said Kaitlyn Betts, a Utah State gymnast. “We put up some of our very best scores of the season, but we aren’t done yet.

Southern’s gymnasts earned the top scores in three events and tied for the top spot in the vault in Logan. In doing so, they ascended another spot to 21st in the NCAA rankings.

Since the loss to SUU, the Aggies have turned their ordinary practices into a pseudo-competition to prepare for the rematch.

“To prepare for our match we split the team into smaller groups of four,” Betts said. “We made it a competition to see who could outperform each other. We need to get into competition mode as soon as possible.”

The Aggies have only won once on the road so far this season — narrowly besting BYU in Provo on Jan. 23. Betts said she and her teammates are confident they can win in Cedar City, too.

“Last year we beat them in their home,” Betts said. “We both have great teams. We are comparable, but we can put up great scores that will look good for our conference and our loyal fans.”

The meet is also an opportunity for revenge against Denver — currently ranked 18th in the nation — which beat Utah State 196.025 to 194.525 in Colorado on Jan. 17.

Shay Haddow, the marketing director for Aggie athletics, said multiple social media sites including Twitter and Facebook will be actively updated throughout tonight’s meet. Aggie fans can also find live stats at UtahStateAggies.com.

An Aggie win over Southern would be a historical equalizer as well; SUU has held a slight lead over the Aggies for 13 years with a record of 40-39.

Sarah Keyes, Hannah Rose, Landon Pozernick, Erin West and Amber Farrow contributed to this report.
-mdl

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