No. 5 Quinnipiac (0-1) acrobatics and tumbling lost its season opener at home on Sunday to the No. 1 Baylor Bears (1-0) – the defending national champion – by the final score of 286.96-278.775

The Bobcats had a good start to the day winning the first event, the Compulsory round, 38.50-38.40. The Bears would then take the second event, Acrobatics, 29.35-28.45 and held the overall lead 67.75-66.95. Baylor held that lead throughout the remainder of the contest.

[media-credit id=1989 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]

After the Bobcats took the Pyramid round, 29.80-29.75, and the Bears taking the toss event, 29.40-29.10, the Bears went into the final two events leading 126.90-125.85.

Quinnipiac head coach Mary Ann Powers took these first events to help strengthen her team.

“I scaled back on a lot of their star values because I just wanted them to get some confidence,” Powers said. “Whereas the stare values on Baylor’s side were already way up there. We stayed close and now I get to build the season and put some layers on this and I think the kids are ready for more.”

The Bears started to add onto their lead in the Tumbling event winning 58.35-55.525 and went into the final event leading 185.25-181.35. The Bears would secure the victory winning the Team event 101.71-97.40.

Even though this game counts as a loss on their record, Powers believes this was an overall win for the team.

“I don’t take this as a loss” Powers said. “There’s lots of ways to win. We won in this bench today, we won in confidence, we won in regaining some injuries, we won in these kids having a ball and making sure that are fans had a good time and growing the sport. There’s a lot of wins here and no losses for this team.”

The Bobcats will next go to Philippi, West Virginia to face Alderson Broaddus University and Fairmont State University on Saturday afternoon.