University of Washington
Air Force/Seattle Pacific
Seniors Lead Huskies To Two Wins in Final Home Meet
March 11, 2011 | Gymnastics
March 11, 2011
SEATTLE - The Huskies were the only team in tears in the end, but it wasn't because of their scores. The No. 15 ranked Gym Dawgs said goodbye to three Friday night in their win over SPU and Air Force. This senior night was especially meaningful to head coach Joanne Bowers as she said goodbye to the senior gymnasts who made up her first recruiting class - Samantha Walior, Haley Bogart and Kristen Linton.
After a solid first two rotations, the Huskies struggled on beam and let the emotions of the evening get to them on the floor. Coach Bowers echoed this saying "I thought the first couple of events, we were just on fire, the girls were doing great" but "I felt like when we got to the floor tonight, the emotion of the week, of the season, of the night, kind of got to us a little bit." Despite the emotional evening, the Huskies still came away with a convincing win with a 195.425 score to SPU's 190.050 and Air Force Academy's 189.175.
A Husky gymnast won each of the four events and the all-around.
Sophomore Amanda Cline (Aurora, Colo.) finished in first place on vault, her fifth vault title of the season, tying her career high 9.925. The Huskies took the top five positions on vault and all six Huskies finished in the top 10. Sophomore Lauren Rogers (Plains, Pa.) came in second place with a 9.850 and Bogart (Woodside, Calif.) finished third with a 9.825.
Cline also broke her season record and tied her career record on bars with a 9.825. The Huskies took the top six places on the bars, with junior Ruby Engreitz (Kirkland, Wash.) and Walior (Prior Lake, Minn.) tying for first with a score of 9.875.
The Huskies took the top five spots on beam with Walior finishing first with a 9.825. Sophomore Paige Bixler (Rowlett, Texas) Bogart tied for second with a 9.725.
Freshman Aliza Vaccher (Eugene, Ore.) tied her season and career-high on the floor with a 9.800, taking second place overall. The Huskies took the top three spots on the floor with Linton (Edmonds, Wash.) coming in first with a 9.875 and Rogers coming in third with a 9.775, respectfully. Vaccher also took the all-around title, tying her all-around season and career-high with a score of 39.025.
Bowers commended her team not just on excelling athletically but academically during an incredible regular season saying "They're so strong academically, finishing up classes for the quarter and their finals, it kind of culminated on the last event and you could just feel it. For us to have that and still get a mid 195 was just wonderful. I'm so proud of this team. They're so consistent all season long. I don't think this will negatively affect us in any way going into the Pac-10 tournament. If anything, it will make us work harder next week. I trust this team immensely that we're going to do a great job from there."
Linton looks back with great memories from her gymnastics career at UW but also continues to look forward to the Pac-10 Championships next week. She remarked at how much the team has grown from the last time they competed in Los Angeles (the Pac-10 showcase in January) saying, "I think we're definitely a lot more confident than we were then. That was our first meet and we had the first meet jitters and we didn't really know what we could do yet. Looking back on the season, I think we're really going to bring our confidence there so I'm really excited."
Players Mentioned
