Home Sweet Home for BYU Gymnasts

PROVO -- The Marriott Center will be rocking this Friday as the BYU gymnastics team competes at home for the first time since Jan. 9, hosting Utah State, Boise State and San Jose State in a quad meet. The competition will begin at 7 p.m. and feature continuous action from all four teams.

“"We just need to keep plugging away,” said BYU head coach Brad Cattermole. “We've had some injuries and are already a very young team, but we'll just keep moving forward with who we have and keep working to get better."

The Cougars have suffered crushing blows over the last month in the injury department. BYU lost junior co-captain McKell Poulson-Merkley in the middle of January to a torn ACL. Then last week, the injury bug struck again as freshmen Holland Davis and Natalie Eyre both went down. As a result, BYU will be forced to compete with just five gymnasts on the uneven bars. Cattermole is hoping freshman and former Canadian National Team member Jennifer Lezeu will be ready to go on that event soon.

“We hadn’t really planned on using Jenny on that event this year so she was working on a more difficult routine for next season,” said Cattermole. “Now she’ll start preparing a more basic routine that she’s comfortable with, and she’ll become our sixth bar worker when she’s ready.”

The quad meet will be the biggest home meet of the year for the Cougars in terms of sheer numbers. BYU has already seen San Jose State this year at SJSU and will face both Boise State and Utah State later on in the season. The Spartans are ranked No. 28 in the country and are led by Veronica Porte, who is tied for 14th on the floor. The Broncos are coming off their best score of the season with a 195.700 at UCLA last week. Utah State enters the meet with a No. 37 ranking as Nicole Simoneau sits at No. 25 in the nation on the bars.

Friday’s meet in the Marriott Center will be the first of the year in that venue for the Cougars. They will also compete there on March 20 against Utah. BYU’s only other home meet of the year was Jan. 9 against Oregon State in the Smith Fieldhouse. Live stats are available and can be found by going to the schedule page of the BYU women’s gymnastics homepage at www.byucougars.com/gymnastics_w.