Coming off an impressive win over Cal last week, the ASU gymnastics team’s confidence is off the charts.
The Gym Devils (2-0, 1-0 Pac-12) will look to narrow the margin in the State Farm Territorial Cup Series against rival UA on Friday night at Wells Fargo Arena.
“Yeah, I think everybody’s confidence has really increased,” freshman Brianna Gades said. “(That meet) was a major confidence booster.”
Gades hit her beam routine and stuck a perfect landing on bars against Cal.
No. 15 UA (0-1, 0-1 Pac-12) opened up the Pac-12 season with a loss to Oregon State, and the Sun Devils will try to make that two in a row.
Although gymnastics is not a sport where one team directly affects the other with its own play, the ASU gymnasts still have extra motivation when facing the Wildcats.
“I definitely do,” senior Beaté Jones said. “I mean, I don’t think the freshmen will realize it until we compete against them, because I didn’t realize (it in my) freshman year until after the competition.”
The Sun Devils are winless against UA in dual meets since 2006.
“I have a little extra motivation,” assistant coach Tom Ward said. “(You hear) ‘let’s do it for the seniors,’ and I’m all for that. It’s just the fact of it being UA. As a Sun Devil, you understand. (It’s the) Wildcats — you have to beat them.”
Jones finished first overall with a score of 39.300 against Cal, one of the highest scores in the nation that week.
If the Sun Devils perform as well as they did against the Golden Bears, they should easily be able to take this rivalry meet.
ASU practices went well, with no major injuries and constant improvement.
“We had a good practice yesterday,” coach John Spini said. “(It was) supposed to be physical and it was. A lot of kids (were) doing what they needed to do.”
It may be easy to go from OK to good, but it is much more difficult to go from good to great.
The judging of gymnastics always brings some uncertainty as well.
“The problem in gymnastics is when you go to this new meet, there’s four different judges with a whole different look, so you have no clue what last week’s (routine) will … score next week,” Spini said.
Reach the reporter at gdemano@asu.edu
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