Institute, W. Va. – On Monday night, the Wheeling University Acrobatics & Tumbling team returned to action on the road as they traveled to West Virginia State. It would be a historic night for the program as they picked up the first win in program history with a 215.125-203.555. The Cardinals would win five of the six events on the night, and set new program records in nearly every one of those events.
Their top event of the night would be the pyramid, with the Cardinals setting new program records in all three heats of the event. The event began with the Inversion Pyramid, where Gabriella Jantz and Keala McCurry would go upside down and posted an 8.800. The Cardinals would then move to the Synchronized Pyramid and continued their string of 8.000 scores or better. It was the only heat in the event the Cardinals would lose as they put up a score of 8.200 heading into the final heat of the event. This would be highest scoring event of the heat as they put together a 9.00 for a near perfect score for their start value of 9.250. It brought their total score to 26.000 for the event as they earned a 26.000-25.700 event win.
The night would kick-off with the Compulsory, where the Cardinals once again excelled both in the toss and the pyramid heats. The toss heat was their highest scoring of the event, with the team posting a 9.100, sitting just .100 away from the program record. The pyramid heat would finish right behind it with an 8.800 in the Cardinal's largest margin of victory for the event. Wheeling won three of the four heats, and scored 27.750 in the Compulsory Event. The Acro heat was up next, and the Cardinals would drop their only event of the night, falling to West Virginia State 22.950-22.300. However, they would end the event strong, scoring a 7.850, and earning their lone heat win of the event. They continued their success into the Pyramid event, and by halftime the Cardinals had built a 76.050-73.700 lead.
After halftime, the Cardinals would head into the Toss event, and once again had three scores sitting at 8.000 or higher. Wheeling had identical 8.150 scores in both the 450 Salto and the Synchronized toss before rounding out the event strong. It would come in the open heat, where the Cardinals posted a score of 8.550 for a full one-point win for the Cardinals. They would put up a program best 24.850 for the event and earned their largest event win of the night, beating West Virginia State by 2.450 points. As the tumbling events began, it would be the team passes to start things off. The duo pass kicked things off, scoring a 5.950, followed by a 6.950 in the trip pass and a 5.050 from the quad pass. It was the individual passes that once again led the way.
Keala McCurry would put up the highest score in the Aerial Pass, putting up an 8.300 to earn her second individual heat win of the season. Up next was Gianna Bjorn in the six-element pass and she would put up a 7.950 for her first individual event win. The final individual pass came from Gabriella Jantz in the Open Pass and she would score a 7.850 in the final event. The Cardinals would score 42.025 for the event, setting another program record and had the lead heading into the team event. After not competing in the team event the last two times due to injury, the Cardinals were back in the team routine. They would set a new program record, scoring 72.200 points out of 115.00 to round out the night. It would end a record setting night as the Cardinals finished at 215.125 to set a new program point record.
The Wheeling University Acrobatics & Tumbling team returns to action on Saturday, March 22nd, when they head to the West Liberty tri-meet with action beginning at 4 PM.
