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        • VIDEO: Alexa  Okamura

SEATTLE – After a slow start to the season, the Falcons are finally making the grade.
 
A trio of seniors, Maria Hundley, Alexa Okamura, and Rain Sullivan, all posted career-high scores on the floor exercise, and Hundley tied for first place on both the vault and uneven bars, but Seattle Pacific fell barely short of UC Davis in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation women's gymnastics meet on Friday night.
 
The Aggies finished with 192.55 points in Brougham Pavilion, just enough to edge SPU's 192.50.


 
The Falcons led after each of the first two rotations, but trailed by half a point (144.40 to 143.90) entering the final event. They took to the floor to try to erase that deficit.
 
"We knew the scoring was pretty good on floor if we hit routines," said SPU coach Laurel Tindall. "I knew it could be close if we hit floor and they didn't hit beam, opening the door for us a little bit there. We almost caught them."
 
The Aggies closed with just enough on the balance beam (48.15) to withstand SPU's 48.60 on the floor and win by five-hundredths of a point.
 
Hundley (Littleton, Colo.), who had not performed a floor routine in any of her first three seasons at SPU, scored a 9.775 on that event Friday. She surpassed last week's inaugural mark of 9.700 and tied for fifth overall.

 

Okamura (Redmond HS) tallied 9.750, well ahead of her old floor high of 9.625. Sullivan (Moraga, Calif.) earned a 9.725 to top her previous best of 9.700.
 
SPU's team floor total of 48.60 was a season high, eclipsing the 48.45 from last Friday's meet at Sacramento State.
 
"We had some good performances. Floor was really the only event where we hit everything," Tindall said.
 
After not reaching the 190-point plateau in any of their first four meets, the Falcons now have topped it twice in a row. Friday's score came on the heels of last week's 193.05 in Sacramento.
 
"They proved last week what they are capable of, and that's what we want to see all the time," said Tindall.
 
The eight-team field for the USAG Collegiate Championships is determined based on regional qualifying scores. Those marks are a composite of a team's top scores with a few of the lowest thrown out.
 
"I told them this week that it's kind of like your grade point average," Tindall explained. "Once it's way down there, it takes a lot to get it back up. Getting one score is great, but it takes like five "A"s to erase that GPA that's low.
 
"Having two good scores these last two weeks gets us on our way to raising that qualifying score."
 
Sophomore Ariana Harger (Castro Valley, Calif.) and Hundley went 1-2 in the all-around, both with career-high scores. Harger totaled 38.650 (previous best 38.625), and Hundley had 38.00 (previous best 37.775).

 

Hundley had a familiar result on the vault. She earned her fifth score of exactly 9.800 on that apparatus in six meets, tying with Katy Nogaki of UC Davis. On the bars, Hundley and Alexis Brown of Davis had matching marks of 9.775.
 
Nogaki claimed the beam title for the Aggies with a 9.875 and teammate Yasmine Yektaparast topped the floor field at 9.850.
 
Harger and SPU teammate Kristi Hayashida tied for third place on the beam with matching scores of 9.825.
 
Tindall singled out Harger's beam routine for praise.
 
"Ari's beam was definitely the best we've seen her do in her two years. She only had one small step on the dismount and the head judge went 9.9. If she hadn't stepped, would he have gone 10?
 
"She really had great amplitude, had no balance checks or anything. It couldn't have been cleaner."
 
The Falcons travel to the Midwest next Friday, visiting Northern Illinois for a three-way meet that also includes Ball State at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
 

NCAA WOMEN'S GYMNASTICS
Friday, Feb. 12, 2016
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
                                                                           
Team Scores
1, UC Davis, 192.550
2, Seattle Pacific, 192.500
                          
All-Around
1, Ariana Harger, SPU, 38.650
2, Maria Hundley, SPU, 38.000
3, Dani Judal, UCD, 37.650
 
Vault
1t, Maria Hundley, SPU, 9.800
1t, Katy Nogaki, UCD, 9.800
3t, Kara Jones, UCD, 9.750
3t, Alexis Brown, UCD, 9.750
 
Uneven Bars
1t, Maria Hundley, SPU, 9.775
1t, Alexis Brown, UCD, 9.775
3, Miranda Holder, UCD, 9.650
 
Balance Beam
1, Katy Nogaki, UCD, 9.875
2, Alexis Brown, UCD, 9.850
3t, Ariana Harger, SPU, 9.825
3t, Kristi Hayashida, SPU, 9.825
 
Floor Exercise
1, Yasmine Yektaparast, UCD, 9.850
2, Miranda Holder, UCD, 9.825
3t, Kara Jones, UCD, 9.800
3t, Amanda Presswood, UCD, 9.800
     Top SPU scorer – 5t, Maria Hundley, 9.775
                             
 
Next Meet
Seattle Pacific at Northern Illinois (with Central Michigan)
Friday, Feb. 19, 4:00 p.m. PST
Victor E. Court / DeKalb, Ill.