#13 Gymnastics Wins Cat Classic

Taking on a decent but not spectacular field at the 29th annual (so yes, MUCH older than rpt) Cat Classic, the Tigers went out strong early and coasted to a win over #23 Michigan State, Western Michigan and Cal State-Fullerton on Friday night.  Junior Sarah Shire continued to dominate and impress, winning her seventh all-around title of the season (along with vault and floor), scoring another career high with a pretty amazing 39.575.  She had two events score over a 9.9 (including a 9.95 on the vault) and just missed on the other two.

Mizzou got out to an early lead with a big time score of 49.225 on the vault, highlighted by Shire's performance.  They would head to the uneven bars, where uncharacteristic falls from senior Alicia Hatcher and reigning Big XII All-Around champion Adrienne Perry would keep the Tiger score down.  On to the balance beam, where two more falls would force the Tigers to take a score of 9.175 from Mary Burke towards their total (remember, the lowest of the six scores from each event is dropped).  However, the team would rebound and close out strong on the floor and junior Danielle Guider would shake off her fall from the beam with a career-high 9.850.

All told, had the Tigers put up two more solid performance, their team score of 195.275 would have likely been much closer to about 196.400 or so.   With the score they did put up, look for the Tiger's ranking to slide back just a bit.  The Tigers still have two more competitions before the Big XII Championships, as they will head to Ypsilanti, Michigan next weekend to take on Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan and Kent State on Saturday night.