Gymnastics to face TWU on Senior Night
The Centenary gymnastics team will honor its three seniors in the Ladies’ final home meet of the season as they face the Texas Woman's University Pioneers in a Midwest Independent Conference dual meet on Friday at 6 p.m. in the Gold Dome.
Shreveport - The Centenary gymnastics team will honor its three seniors in the Ladies' final home meet of the season as they face the Texas Woman's University Pioneers in a Midwest Independent Conference dual meet on Friday at 6 p.m. in the Gold Dome.
Live stats and live video (https://collegetvticket.com/portal/centenary) are available for the meet. A special ceremony honoring the trio of seniors will also be available as part of the video stream. The Ladies' three seniors that will be honored on Friday are Jerrica Harris (Memphis, Tenn.), Jenny Jackson (Monticello, Fla.), and Sierra Ponder (Stone Mountain, Ga.).
The Ladies and TWU will be facing each other for the fourth time this season and for the second weekend in a row. Centenary finished third on Sunday in a tri-meet versus the host Pioneers and Oklahoma in Denton, Texas. Centenary finished with an overall team score of 189.575 as the Maroon and White posted their second-best score of the season, nearly matching the 189.925 they recorded on Feb. 13 in a previous tri-meet against the same pair of teams in Fort Worth, Texas.
Centenary enters Friday's meet ranked 53rd in the country in the latest Road to Nationals rankings as the Ladies are the highest ranked division III team in the nation. TWU, a division II school, enters the meet ranked 48th. The Ladies earned a 47.850 on vault in Sunday's meet, their highest score in any of the four individual events and finished with a 47.600 on floor, a 47.275 on beam, and a 46.850 on bars.
Ladies' Junior All-American Kendall Sanders (Spring Branch, Texas) finished third in the all-around competition with a score of 37.875. Sanders earned scores of 9.675 on beam and floor, her best score of the meet, and earned a 9.500 on vault and a 9.025 on bars She finished in a tie for eight on beam, 10th on floor, 15th on bars, and 16th on vault.
Ponder had a great meet on Sunday as she earned three new career-best scores on bars (9.725), on vault (9.550), and on beam (9.275). Freshman Isabel Plaza (San Antonio, Texas) made her Ladies' debut and scored a 9.475 on vault. Sophomores Kendall Huff (Riviera, Texas) nearly matched her season-best (9.750) score on vault with an impressive 9.700 on Sunday. Ponder finished in a tie for seventh on bars, Deshler and Sanders tied for eighth on beam, Huff tied for ninth on vault, and Sanders placed 10th on floor for all of the Ladies' top finishes in each event.
Sophomore Lauryn Stiff (Branson, Mo.) earned a season-high score of 9.425 on bars. Junior Xian Baumgartner (Albuquerque, N.M.) recorded a season-best 9.500 on bars. Sophomore Rose Deshler (Hastings, Minn.) earned a new career-best 9.675 on beam. Harris recorded a new career-best 9.600 on beam and Jackson scored a season-high-tying 9.400 on floor. Sophomore Leilani Johnson (Wichita, Kan.) posted a season-best 9.575 on floor.
The Ladies will next compete in the MIC Conference Championship hosted by Illinois State University on Friday, March 19 at 3 p.m. in Normal, Ill.
Centenary's complete 2021 schedule can be found here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/gymnastics/2020-21/schedule.
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