No. 24 Maryland gymnastics loses close to No. 17 Minnesota, 196.800-196.650

Coming off an impressive win at Xfinity Center Friday night, No. 24 Maryland gymnastics was looking for a second-consecutive victory before hitting the road for the next two weeks.

Unfortunately, the Terps were unable to defend their home turf twice in a row, as they fell to the No. 17 Minnesota Golden Gophers Sunday afternoon, 196.800-196.650. 

The score was the second-best for the Gym Terps so far this season. On the other side, the Golden Gophers had an impressive meet which featured multiple scores of 9.925 or better.  

The Terps started the meet on vault. It wasn’t their strongest showing, with only two competing gymnasts recording above a 9.800 — senior Emma Silberman (9.850) and graduate Alexsis Rubio (9.850). Rubio tied her season-high, which she set on Friday. 

In the second rotation, the Terps took on bars, looking for a better result. Sophomore Sierra Kondo delivered, recording a 9.900, a meet-best, and her third time posting such a score on bars this season. Sophomore Rhea Leblanc and junior Elizabeth Debarberie also turned in good performances, both scoring a 9.800. However, the Terps still found themselves down by a decent margin after a great showing by the Golden Gophers in both events.

Despite a slow start in the first two rotations, the Terps rebounded in a large way in the third and fourth rotations. In the third rotation, Maryland moved to balance beam, where it recorded its second-best score of the season with a 49.150. There, five out of six competing gymnasts recorded a 9.800 or better — senior Reese McClure (9.875), freshman Maddie Komoroski (9.825), sophomore Josephine Kogler (9.825), Debarberie (9.825) and Silberman (9.800). McClure’s 9.875 was also a meet-best.

“I’ve been working really hard on consistency and perfecting my dance, like landing my skills a little sharper and I’ve really been working on that stick on the dismount,” McClure said. “So it’s nice to kind of see all that come together today.”

Although they didn’t end up coming out on top, the Terps stole the show with their final rotation, the floor routine. They recorded a collective 49.450, their best overall floor score in six years. All six gymnasts recorded a 9.800 or higher, with three recording a 9.900 or higher — Silberman (9.900), Komoroski (9.925) and junior Alexa Rothenbuescher (9.925).

“I’m just so proud of them,” coach Brett Nelligan said. “I thought we started a little slow, but you can see as the night was going on we were bringing up the intensity and that’s what I asked them to do. And for us to finish a weekend with two meets with that kind of intensity on floor was incredible.”

Silberman once again led the Terps in individual scoring. Her score of 39.325 was good enough for a tie in first place with Minnesota sophomore Gianna Gerdes.

The Terps will travel to Lincoln, Nebraska this week for their biggest test of the season thus far. They’ll be competing in the Big Five Meet Friday night at 8 p.m. against conference foes No. 3 Michigan, No. 18 Iowa, No. 23 Illinois and No. 30 Penn State. 

“We did a great job tonight helping ourselves — the rankings will come out tomorrow but I think we’ll move into a three seed in that Big Five meet, which coming in today I think we were a four seed,” Nelligan said. “So right there we’ve done ourselves a solid by moving our seeding up. But we’ve got to be at this level, like we were on floor, in all four events. Like I said, I thought we came out a little cautious, and I told them we can’t do that, we’ve got to be aggressive from start to finish. So our focus this week in the gym and then heading to Big Five will be coming out aggressive from start to finish.”