No. 1 A&T Earns Two Weekly Awards from NCATA

WACO, Texas – Baylor acrobatics & tumbling earned two of the possible three weekly awards from the NCATA, the organization announced Wednesday.

BU had Riley Chimwala named Athlete of the Week, while Payton Washington earned the Freshman award. This is Chimwala's fourth Athlete of the Week award and Washington's second Freshman nod.

Senior base Chimwala competed in 10 heats and the team event to help Baylor defeat Oregon on the road for the completed season sweep of the Ducks.

She bases two different tops in heat one of Acro with both hand-to-foot and hand-to-hand connections. In acro heat two, she works with a different top than the previous. In the team event, the senior from Plano works with two different tops for a total of four tops throughout the meet. She is featured in a hand-to-foot sequence at the beginning of the routine, where she bases four elements with a start value of 10 in this sequence – three of which no one else in the country is competing right now. In the second acro sequence, she brings two more skills with start value of a 10. She is the mid-level base in a pyramid with SV of a 10 and bases two tosses with start values of 9.9 and 10 respectively in team event as well.

Washington, a top and tumbler from Round Rock, Texas, competed in eight heats and team event for the Bears.

She competes in both compulsory toss and tumbling, matching the season-high of 9.90 in the toss heat against the Ducks. She helped Baylor to a 9.90 score in the five-element acro heat before also earning a 9.90 in heat two of pyramid, the synchronized heat. She stepped up in toss and earned a 9.70 in heat one and earned a 9.55 in heat two. The freshman pivoted in tumbling and tumbled with the quad pass instead of trio before earning a 9.875 score in the six-element solo pass. Overall, she helped the Bears earn seven heat scores of a 9.0 or above in the defeat of the Ducks.

In addition, Jordan Gruendler earned Honorable Mention Specialist of the Week.

The Bears await the seeding for the NCATA National Championship and will compete at Fairmont State for their ninth-straight title from April 25-28.

To stay up to date all year long on all things Baylor acrobatics & tumbling, follow the team on Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok and Instagram: @BaylorAcroTumb.

- BaylorBears.com -

No. 1 A&T Earns Two Weekly Awards from NCATA

Players Mentioned

Riley Chimwala

Jordan Gruendler

Payton Washington

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