WACO, Texas – The No. 1-ranked Baylor acrobatics & tumbling team came up with a win against No. 14 Long Island, 278.54 to 236.66.
 
The Bears (2-0) defeated the Sharks (0-2) by 41.88 points to start the home slate, increasing the meet win streak to 40 in a row. The Bears started the meet with a 16.54-point lead in start value.
 
To start off the meet in Compulsory, BU and the Sharks executed the necessary skills. In the Acro heat, Baylor scored a 8.85 and Long Island followed with a 8.55. BU took the Pyramid heat, 9.90 to 9.50. The Bears scored a 9.65 in the Toss followed by LIU's 9.25. In the Tumbling heat, BU won by 1.30 points as BU scored an 8.70, the Sharks scoring 7.40. Through one event, the score was 37.10 to LIU's 34.70.
 
To start the optional portion of the meet, BU started the competition in the Acro event with their 5 Element heat, featuring Emily Bott and Jordan Gruendler as the tops and Meredith Wells as the base, competing a 180-entry to extension before Gruendler competes an inverted handstand to straddle, scoring an 9.90. The Sharks followed with a 9.10 score in their heat. In the synchronized 6 Element heat, with four different pairs of tops and bases, the Bears scored 8.35 with Alyiah Thomas and Payton Washington kicking it off as tops competing to extension before Makayla Vasquez and Adelaide Vezzosi compete an inverted handstand, followed by 6.40 from LIU. In the third heat, Gruendler and McDonald scored a 9.90 after competing the one-handed handstand before a handstand to planche while McDonald slides to splits and then rotates to straddle. Long Island followed it up with a score of 9.00 in its heat. For the Acro event, BU scored a 28.15 to LIU's 24.50, now totaling 65.25 to 59.20 through two events and Baylor leading by 6.05 points.
 
In the Pyramid event, BU started it off with a 9.95 score in the Inversion heat with Gruendler and McDonald. Topping the Synchronized heat were Washington and Bott, based by Bailey Baughn and Wells, respectively. They scored a 9.80 while the Sharks produced a 9.45. In the Open heat, Gruendler topped McDonald and competed the handstand to planche, scoring a 9.95, while the Sharks scored 9.35. For the Pyramid event, Baylor scored a 29.70/30, while LIU scored a 28.35/30. 
 
At the half, BU was up 94.95 to 87.55, leading by 7.40 points.
 
To kick off the second half in the Toss event, it was Washington topping the 450 Salto heat, finishing with a score of 9.50, followed by an 8.15 from LIU. In the Synchronized heat, Washington and Gabby Kaminski were the tops, scoring 9.35 which the Sharks followed with a score of 8.95. In the final heat, the Open heat, Kaminski was the top, scoring a 9.35, which the Sharks scored a 9.05 against. At the end of the Toss event, Baylor totaled 28.20 while Long Island had a 26.15. Through four events, BU had a score of 123.15 while LIU had a 113.70, the Bears up by 9.45 points.
 
In the Tumbling event, starting in the Duo for the Bears were Thomas and Gigi Rendino who scored a 9.35 on their roundoff whip Arabian tuck to roundoff back handspring back layout 540 pass, followed by a score of 5.75 from LIU. In the Trio were Bott, Gianna Cameron, and Dailyn Hopkins competing roundoff whip whip to back handspring back handspring back layout 540, earning a score of 9.05 which the Sharks put an 7.25 up against. In the Quad pass were Washington, Aliyah Kaloostian, Sarah Kerr, and Kaminski, scoring a 9.40 for their front tuck roundoff back handspring to back layout 540, roundoff back layout 360 pass, while LIU put up a score of 7.80. For the Aerial pass it was Bott, who scored a 9.875 after competing a roundoff whip back layout 540 to roundoff back handspring back layout 360 pass, while Long Island earned a 8.675 score. Competing in the 6 Element heat was Washington competing a front tuck roundoff back handspring back layout 540 to roundoff back layout 360 pass, earning a 9.95 score; LIU earning a score of 9.10. Kerr earned a 9.825 for the Open heat, competing a front handspring front tuck roundoff back handspring back layout 540 to roundoff back layout 360, with the Sharks' 8.425. Combined, Baylor had a score of 57.45 to finish the Tumbling event while the Sharks had a score of 47.00. After five events, BU led 180.60 to 160.70, up by 19.90 points.
 
In Team event, Baylor competed second and scored a 97.94. The Sharks came next, scoring a 95.96.
 
The meet finalized, BU came out on top with a 278.54 score against LIU's 236.66; the Bears winning by 41.88 points.
 
QUOTABLE
Meredith Wells – Junior, Base
On the meet
"It was weird starting the year out away, but I love being here at home because the energy is just unmatched and our fans are awesome. I was working on my confidence and I think I did a great job with that today, and the team, I think we were really there for each other. We were all telling each other during team event, 'I trust you', 'you've got this' and we were making great eye contact."
 
"Tomorrow we're going to make some changes, so whatever comes with that – just rolling with it and keep doing my job and helping out my teammates." 
 
Head Coach Felecia Mulkey
On the day
"I think we got a lot of jitters out. Being away is fun, but I think you feel a little extra pressure in front of the home crowd. I'm really proud of them. We didn't go out as strong at the beginning, but they recovered well, so I'm proud of that. What's so amazing about them is that you don't know what they go through at practice, so they make it look so easy that you don't realize what we're overcoming so much when we go out there. We made several adjustments on Thursday. When you make an adjustment in team event, there's a lot of moving parts there. So the fact that Team Event hit as well as it did, I'm proud of them for that. I don't think every team can do that." 
 
"Our freshmen are second to none. We call them 'come-uppers' because every time we tell them we need something they just come up and do it. Sophia Neylon, it was her first time on the floor, we just threw her in the deep end. Makayla Vasquez just earned her spot in Compulsory Pyramid and 6-Element Acro yesterday, so she's been in it basically less than 24 hours and did a fantastic job. And she battled it out; there were three of them battling – you have to remember its never an easy choice, they're always kind of fighting it out to see who gets in.
 
On the home opener
"Being at home – there's no better place to compete than at Baylor, by far. Our fans are better, our fan engagement's better, the way we run our meets is better. It's just amazing, the energy's amazing; I'm excited we get to host four more here this season."
 
On what to improve
"We see Oregon next weekend and their start values are a lot closer to ours than LIU, so what we'll work on is execution. We got them a little bit in start value but that's nothing, so it's got to be execution. We've already talked about it a bit as a team at the end of the meet, we're coming in tomorrow because we have a short week so we're going to drill and rep and make some adjustments. This judging panel was not an easy panel, they were a little heavy-handed today – I'm not saying that's bad, I'm saying that's what they were, and for us to score as high as we did in acro and pyramid, I'm extremely impressed. If we can keep that going through the rest of the events, we'll be set."
 
On Meredith Wells
"I don't think [Meredith] knows how strong she is. So to be one of the two – you can only cross two athletes over in the Acro event – and for our two to be Meredith and Jordan Gruendler, that speaks to her. She did really well today with that."
 
NEXT UP
The Bears will travel to Oregon for a meet with the No. 4 Ducks on February 22 in Eugene.
 
To stay up to date all year long on all things Baylor acrobatics & tumbling, follow the team on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram: @BaylorAcroTumb.