Coming off a frustrating loss to Stanford last weekend, the ASU Gym Devils hit the road once again this weekend for a Sunday showdown against No. 10 Nebraska in Lincoln.
ASU hopes to rebound from its poor performance in Palo Alto, Calif., with a more focused showing and a higher score against the Cornhuskers.
Last weekend, the Sun Devils posted a team score of 192.375 against the Cardinal after posting a season-high 195.750 the week before.
“I don’t really know exactly what went wrong at Stanford,” sophomore Tina Salavec said. “No one really competed to their full potential.”
Nebraska, on the other hand, hasn’t posted a team score below 194 this season.
The Sun Devils got off to a rocky start in last weekend’s competition, which led to less energy and the lower score. They hope to come out of the gates hot and build momentum early on Sunday.
“Last weekend, I think it was just a bunch of little mistakes, and then we didn’t start off so great on bars, and I think that kind of brought the team energy down,” Salavec said. “We just need to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We all have bad meets; you kind of got to brush it off, forget about it and move forward.”
The Gym Devils felt like they weren’t mentally prepared for the tough road environment at Stanford, but this is something they hope is fixed when they compete Sunday at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln.
“I think we will be better prepared this time,” senior Beaté Jones said. “Last week, not everybody was mentally prepared. We just need to be aware that when we’re not home we might not get the scores that we think we should get.”
The Sun Devils must count three of their away scores for regional qualification. The team is also running out of opportunities to post a high tally on the road and drop one of the lower, less desirable scores.
“[Nebraska] and the Pac-10s are going to be the last away meet scores that we have,” Jones said. “So we really want to get higher scores, so that we can drop a lower one and that kind of boosts us up.”
Confidence, which has been an issue for ASU all season long, will continue to be a factor during Sunday’s competition. The Sun Devils know that it is imperative to keep their energy up even in the event of a few falls.
“If we do get a miss on a routine in the first event, we really need to work on regrouping before our next event and not letting that affect the rest of our meet,” Salavec said.
This is the sixth straight week the Sun Devils have faced off against a ranked team, which is something that Jones says doesn’t bother ASU.
“There’s going to be a lot of pressure because we’re trying to prove a point and show everybody who we are,” Jones said. “But I don’t think going against a higher-ranked team is going to really effect how we are competing, because we need to compete against ourselves. That’s the only way we’re really going to get better.”
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
