No. 14 Beavers Ready Desert Showdown with Wildcats

Saturday, February 4

Tucson, Ariz.

6:00 PM

Oregon State

Arizona

Photo by: Mark Hoffman

February 01, 2017 | Women's Gymnastics

Meet Notes

By: Oregon State Communications

THE MEET
Oregon State, which has moved up the rankings to No. 14, travel to face Arizona in its first Pac-12 road contest of the season. The Beavers carry a 4-1 record into Tucson seeking their sixth straight win over the Wildcats in the desert and 21st consecutive win against the Cats overall. The meet will air live on Pac-12 Oregon and Pac-12 Arizona at 6 p.m. PT with Jim Watson on the call and Amanda Borden with the analysis.

LIVE STATS: There will be live stats at this link.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Live updates will be available on Twitter.

QUICKLY
The Beavers took their first loss of the season last Saturday despite hitting all 24 routines and posting their second-highest score of the season with a 196.700 ... OSU is ranked at No. 14 this week ... If you were to throw out the score from the Beavs' clunker at Seattle Pacific in Week 2, they would be ranked 8th ...
Oregon State is ranked in the top 25 on all four events: vault is 12th (49.056 average); uneven bars is 19th (48.856); balance beam is 18th (48.913); and floor exercise is ranked 8th (49.100) ... Tanya Chaplin is in her 20th season as the Beavers' head coach and won the 300th regular season win of her career earlier this month at Seattle Pacific ... Two freshmen, Sabrina Gill and Isis Lowery, made their collegiate debuts in the season-opener. Destinee Davis made her first competition lineup appearance last week on the balance beam ... Fellow freshman, Halli Briscoe has also performed in exhibition ... Seven out of OSU's 10 opponents on the 2017 schedule were ranked in the preseason Top 36 ... Erika Aufiero, who missed the entire 2016 campaign, and Dani Dessaints, who suffered a season-ending injury prior to the season's second meet, made their return to competition last week with both hitting two routines, Aufiero on vault and uneven bars, Dessaints on vault anf balance beam ... Eighteen of Oregon State's 20 gymnasts earned 3.0 or higher GPA's during fall term.

VS. ARIZONA
Oregon State and Arizona meet in the regular season for the 73rd time on Saturday with the Beavers holding the series advantage at 57-26. The Beavers are 10-10 in Tucson, but will be seeking to win their seventh straight in the desert ... Arizona, ranked 27th this week, enters Saturday's meet with a 4-2 record after taking a narrow defeat at Stanford, 195.900-195.650.

LAST WEEK VS. UCLA
OSU hit all 24 routines for the second straight week last Saturday against UCLA en route to posting their second-highest score of the year, 196.700, however, the Bruins earned the win with a 197.325. Kaytianna McMillan (39.500) and Madeline Gardiner (39.275) led the Beavers tallying impressive scores in the all-around. McMillan set a career-high with a 9.950 on the floor exercise to win the event. Freshmen Sabrina Gill and Isis Lowery continue to acclimate to college gymnastics earning several career-best scores against UCLA. Gill scored 9.80 on each of her three events, tying or setting career-bests on each, while Lowery scored a personal-best 9.85 on the floor.

THE ROSTER
Here are some quick hitters about the Oregon State gymnastics roster in 2017:
• Only half of the roster competed in a meet for Oregon State last season (Mariana Colussi-Pelaez, Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Dani Dessaints, Madeline Gardiner, Mary Jacobsen, Megan Jimenez, Shireen Khamedoost, Kaytianna McMillan, Taylor Ricci and McKenna Singley).
• There are six seniors on the squad (Erika Aufiero, Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Madeline Gardiner, Megan Jimenez, Kaytianna McMillan and Taylor Ricci) who combined to contribute 13 out of 24 routines at last year's regional meet.
• Oregon State returns three All-Americans - Madeline Gardiner (BB - 2014, '15, '16; AA - 2014), Erika Aufiero (UB - 2015) and Kaytianna McMillan (UB - 2016).
• Nine freshmen have joined the squad last fall (Halli Briscoe, Kaitlin Campbell, Destinee Davis, Sabrina Gill, Lena Greene, Jaime Law, Maela Lazaro, Isis Lowery and Alyssa Minyard).
• Of those freshmen, Sabrina Gill, Isis Lowery and Destinee Davis are the only three to have performed a competition routine through the season's first month. Halli Briscoe has also performed in exhibition.
• Four of the Beavers' are from the state of Oregon - Kaitlin Campbell (West Linn), Lena Greene (Tigard), Jaime Law (Corvallis) and Kaytianna McMillan (Coburg).
• Six OSU gymnasts are from outside of the United States - Mariana Colussi-Pelaez, Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, Madeline Gardiner, Sabrina Gill and Taylor Ricci are all from Canada, while Isis Lowery is from Australia.
• The Beavers have 21 out of 24 routines returning from 2016 making lineup spots hard to come by.
• Eighteen of the Beavers' 20 gymnasts earned a GPA of 3.0 or higher during fall term.

CONFERENCE OF CHAMPIONS
In the preseason coaches poll, the Pac-12 Conference had seven of its eight teams ranked in the Top 36, which is the number of teams that qualify to NCAA Regionals. Currently, Utah is ranked No. 4, followed by No. 5 UCLA, No. 14 Oregon State, No. 15 California and Washington is No. 18.