NC State gymnastics set a season-high score of 196.575 and came in second place as a team to Michigan this past Saturday when it hosted its Alumni Meet at Reynolds Coliseum. NC State hosted three teams for the quad meet; UNC-Chapel Hill, Michigan and Brown.
The Wolfpack’s victory over the Tar Heels was another meet for the EAGL conference. It was the second time the Pack has defeated the Tar Heels this season. This meet also marked the Pack earning its highest team score of the season, passing its 196.350 against Ball State and William & Mary in late January. Senior Chelsea Knight also finished first in the all-around competition, with a score of 39.350.
“I thought that we made a lot of corrections off of our past meet,” Knight said. “And I felt like we always try to be excited and have a lot of fun out there because we trust our training. We do numbers in the gym and you have to trust those numbers when you come out in a competition. I think the biggest thing for us was having controlled aggression but also having fun at the same time. And it was our highest score this season and we’re still building so it’s very exciting.”
Junior Caitlyn Fillard echoed Knight’s statement.
“I think as a whole we did amazing,” Fillard said. “Each meet we walk away with something to work on and we focus on that during the week. And this meet we really showed what we’ve been working on and we performed to the best of our ability. And we’re still walking away with little things that we can keep growing on but as a whole we did so good and we beat our highest score this season.”
The Wolfpack started with an event it is always confident in, the vault. At the end of its vault, the Pack was in the lead with an overall team score of 49.150, but the Wolverines weren’t too far behind and even managed to take the lead from the Pack towards the end.
Sophomore Drew Grantham and Knight both placed fifth on the vault, each with a completed score of 9.875.
Afterwards, the Pack went to the bars where three Pack members tied for third. Each gymnast, Knight, junior Maggie Tamburro and freshman Lauren Kent, scored 9.850.
For Fillard, it was her highest scoring performance along with the beams. She scored 9.825 in each.
For its third event, the Pack took to the beam where Knight came back from last weekend’s performance and scored 9.950, a near perfect 10, placing her in first place for the event.
“This weekend, coming off of last weekend, I fell on beam. And I put a lot of pressure on myself so I was very disappointed in myself about that,” Knight said. “What makes a great athlete is taking what happened but not letting it consume you. And so when I went into the gym this week for this weekend, preparing for this weekend, I was just like ‘You know how to do this, you’re great at this.’ You literally just have to go out there and have fun. And that’s exactly what I did. I thought about all my keys and everything that coach tells us. That was pretty much the reason why I did so well today.”
The Pack ended the meet on the floor where Grantham, Knight and Fillard finished their fourth event to place in all-around.
Knight placed first, followed by Fillard who placed fourth and Grantham who finished in fifth.
The team as a whole may not have placed first, but Fillard mentioned that it was good to beat rival UNC.
“That felt really good,” Fillard said. “Last time we won against them it was at their school, so they had all their fans. This time it felt really good having Reynolds packed with our fans and they really help us with the energy. And now we know that in the future at the EAGL championships, we can go out there and beat them again.”
Fillard followed up her statement about looking forward to being home for next weekend.
“Yes, definitely,” Fillard said. “We’ve been on the road for four weekends in a row. And so we were ready to come back to Reynolds and we’re really excited for next weekend also.”
Next Saturday the Wolfpack returns for its Sweetheart Meet against William & Mary at Reynolds Coliseum at 4 p.m.
