Senior Natasha Sundby strikes a pose for the judges during a routine on Jan. 9, 2015, at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. (Andrew Ybanez/The State Press)The ASU gymnastics team has endured its ups and downs already — and the season started just a few weeks ago.
After posting their highest overall score since 2009 in their season opener, ASU placed third in a tri-meet last weekend.
Now preparing for a quad-meet on Sunday, head coach Rene Lyst wants to see a more focused approach on consistency, as she feels it's the core of the team.
"Overall, one of our strengths has been that we've been fairly consistent in our performances on all four events," Lyst said. "However, I would say our two standout events right now are bars and floor. We've been doing a real great job on both of those events."
The Sun Devils had six athletes place in the uneven parallel bars and six more place in the floor exercise events in the Kentucky Classic last Friday.
Junior Allie Salas was the highest placing Sun Devil in both, placing third in bars with a score of 9.850 and fifth on the floor with a 9.825 mark.
While preparing for this weekend's match at California, Salas said she is excited to demonstrate her hard work.
"I love floor," she said. "It's my favorite event, but I'm (also) excited for beam. I feel like I've been working really hard in the gym to improve on beams, since it's new, and I feel I've come pretty far."
This is Salas' first year competing on the balance beam and the bars, after spending her freshman and sophomore seasons focusing solely on the vault and floor exercises.
And Salas isn't the only one working hard.
"There's always areas of improvement, but overall I am excited about this team," Salas said. "People are stepping up and getting their job done."
Another athlete getting her job done is junior Taylor Allex, who transferred from Utah and has made an immediate impact.
In ASU's first two meets of the year, Allex has averaged a 9.825 score on the vault and 9.850 on the floor.
She's now working on perfecting the balance beam and making progress daily.
"I'm going with something that's just as high in skill level, but more easy for me and my body," Allex said. "I also need to focus on my connections, because the last meet I did completely fine, it was just the connection between the leaps that I missed."
Once she gets the beam down, Allex is hoping to get to work on the final of the four skill sectors — the uneven bars.
"Hopefully I'll be competing all-around by the end of the year," Allex said.
As far as the team goes, there is optimism all-around, and with good reason.
"We are getting better every meet ... hopefully everything keeps progressing but honestly, I think we are doing great."
ASU will be squaring off against Cal, San Jose State and Denver. The meet is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. MST on Sunday.
Reach the reporter at mtquesad@asu.edu or follow @mitchTquesada on Twitter.
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