Quinnipiac acrobatics and tumbling quickly returned to its dominant ways to start its 2024 campaign with a 40-point win against Morgan State on the road Saturday afternoon.
The 262.580-220.770 victory marks four-straight wins in season openers for the Bobcats, who have a historic presence in the sport already. In fact, Quinnipiac beat the Bears in every single individual heat in every event. Morgan State, who just received entry to the National Collegiate Acro & Tumbling Association (NCATA) this season, put up a solid effort, the Bobcats took control and ran with it.
Greatness is expected out of this team. Quinnipiac opened the year ranked No. 3, and that’s hardly by accident. Head coach Mary Ann Powers built the program in Hamden from the ground up for the better part of three decades and, as one of the founding members of the NCATA, she is a force to be reckoned with.
The meet started off with a bang in the compulsory event, where the Bobcats earned 38 out of 40 possible points. Their scores pyramid (9.850) and toss (9.950) were the highlights. Performances from tops senior Lyndsey Rudolph and junior Alyssa Dillon in the toss secured a high-scoring first event that set the tone. That tone would continue to ring throughout the rest of the meet and the Bobcats continued to roll.
In the second event, Quinnipiac already began to pull away after a 6.250 point six-element from the Bears. The Bobcats capitalized in the subsequent seven-element with an event-high 9.850. Senior back base Chloe White and senior top MiaRose King stole the show, especially in King’s final element before her dismount.
At the halfway mark of the meet, Quinnipiac established a 14-point lead ahead of Morgan State coming out of the pyramid event, where the open element scored 9.900 for the Bobcats. In the next event — the toss — Quinnipiac continued with incredibly consistent scores across the board. That was highlighted by a 9.550 open toss, where freshman top Kathryn Coker had arguably her best performance of the night in her debut.
The tumbling portion of the meet went well for Quinnipiac, with senior base Tiffany Zieba taking the cake with the top score of the event. The judges recorded her open tumbling a 9.725, complete with two front flips, several back handsprings into a backflip with a twist to get her facing forward again. The meet ended with the team portion which was just more Bobcat dominance.
The team score was a dominant 86.730-68.770, making the win more lopsided than the match truly was.
Acro and Tumbling will be back in action for their home opener against LIU on Feb. 25 at 1 p.m.
