Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Hogs confident despite stumbles
FAYETTEVILLE — The No. 8 Arkansas gymnastics team will look to reverse its recent momentum against yet another top 20 opponent when the Razorbacks play host to No. 18 Minnesota tonight at Barnhill Arena.
The Razorbacks (9-5) are trying to regroup against the Golden Gophers (5-8) after losing four consecutive meets against top 10 opponents and taking an injury hit last week.
The nation’s new No. 1 all-arounder, Katherine Grable, will probably compete only on bars and beam for Arkansas because of an ankle injury, while junior all-arounder Jordan Salsberg is out for the year after tearing a knee ligament in last week’s home loss to Nebraska.
“Kat and Jordan definitely bring in big scores for the team ... so we’re going to have to adjust to our new lineup,” Arkansas all-arounder Jaime Pisani said. “We just really need our girls to do their jobs, stay calm in situations.”
Arkansas, which has scored less than 196.125 only once all season, has competed against the nation’s best virtually every week, dating to its seasonopening victory in the Cancun Classic.
The Razorbacks, who were tied for No. 1 heading into week four, have averaged 196.12 during the four-meet losing streak after averaging nearly 196.8 in their first five meets.
“Every meet you compete to win,” Arkansas co-coach Mark Cook said. “The crazy thing about our sport is that win-loss doesn’t really matter. We’re still scoring well.
“Even though we might have lost four meets the last four weekends or whatever, we’ve probably won about 150 meets because we’re competing against everybody else in the country.”
The Golden Gophers, led by all-arounders Dusti Russell, Kayla Slechta and Cierra Tomson, lost to six of their first seven opponents but have averaged 195.85 in their past three meets, including a peak of 196.25 in a victory at Iowa on Feb. 24.
The Razorbacks are trying to push aside the recent setbacks and focus on maintaining their strong regional qualifying score (196.545) and pushing for a No. 1 seed for their NCAA regional at Barnhill.
“Obviously all the meets we’ve been in these last few weeks have been extremely competitive, extremely strong programs,” co-coach Rene Cook said. “You come out of the meet and you feel like, ‘Oh, God, I just went through a war.’ And then you see you’ve scored higher than 85 percent of the country, so you’re like, ‘OK, we’re fine.’ ”
Pisani, the nation’s No. 1ranked floor exercise performer the past five weeks, will be honored on senior night along with Mariah Howdeshell and Genny Salvatore.
“This is a special group to us,” Rene Cook said. “They’ve really weathered a lot of storms. Obviously, Jaime is phenomenal. She’s been the heartbeat of everything we’ve done as far as our athletic success.”