NC State gymnastics didn’t start off the afternoon on the highest note, falling behind early and trailing for much of the meet. But after gaining a slight edge over UNC-Chapel Hill after three rotations, the Wolfpack gave its best floor exercise routines of the season, earning it a season-high 196.025 and giving it a win over UNC, Pitt and Towson in the quad-meet.
“We’re committed to just climbing up that next step,” head coach Kim Landrus told NC State Athletics. “We started on vault, and for the entire meet we built. We never let any small obstacle get in our way. Today was just a total team effort culminating on floor with the sixth-best score in program history.”
NC State started off the afternoon with a strong performance on the vault. Sophomores Emily Shepard and Chloe Negrete anchored the Wolfpack with scores of 9.825 and 9.800, respectively. Freshmen Madison Benson and Carina Jordan, along with senior Victoria Prati, all scored 9.750’s. That consistency was good enough to give the Pack a 48.875, but it wasn’t good enough to give it the lead in the first rotation, which belonged to North Carolina, which scored a 49.025 on the beam.
Jordan continued her solid performance at the meet, as the freshman achieved a new career high in the uneven bars with a 9.850. Jordan’s 9.850 set the pace for the Wolfpack, which continued to earn high scores on the bars. Junior Meredith Robinson and senior Katie Cox followed up with 9.825’s of their own, and NC State maintained its place behind UNC after two rotations, only trailing the Tar Heels 97.925 – 97.725.
“In my head, I’m always trying to be like, ‘I can make small changes here, and then I’ll be really close to perfect’, and just remembering that helps your scores go up,” Jordan said.
As good as NC State did on the bars and the vault, it was on the beam that the Wolfpack rose to the occasion. Negrete’s 9.800 and Cox’s 9.825 gave the Pack a good enough start on the beams to warrant a decent score in the rotation, but the rest of the Pack pushed NC State from having a decent score to an excellent one.
Senior Nicole Webb made the most of her first appearance of the night, scoring a 9.800 that was her highest of the year on the beam. Junior Kailin Foland’s 9.725 and senior Kasey Nelson’s 9.700 not only pushed the team 0.025 points ahead of North Carolina, but gave the Wolfpack its first lead of the afternoon.
And while NC State took the lead on the beams, it pulled away with its dominant floor routines. All six Pack gymnasts achieved career highs on the floor. Negrete had the highest score, not only among her teammates but in the entire meet with a 9.925.
“We’ve all been going super hard in practice,” Jordan said. “We always try to do our best and keep up our energy [in practice]. We’ve been trying to create that in our meets and move that from practice to competition and we did a very good job with that today.”
NC State’s next meet is a dual-meet against North Carolina and will take place in Chapel Hill. The meet is set to start at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12.
Sophomore Chloe Negrete performs on the vault on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021 at Reynolds Coliseum. The Wolfpack won the quad-meet over UNC-Chapel Hill, Pitt and Towson with a score of 196.025.
