Following Oregon acrobatics and tumbling’s victory in last week’s tri-meet against Quinnipiac and Azusa Pacific, head coach Felecia Mulkey was happy with the win but definitely not satisfied.
“We’re better than what we put out there tonight,” Mulkey said last Monday.
Six days later, Oregon displayed just how much better it could be.
In the team’s final home meet, the Ducks easily defeated Hawaii-Pacific and Alderson-Broaddus with their highest score of the season. Oregon finished with a total of 286.100, while Hawaii Pacific had 270.720 points and Alderson-Broaddus came in last with 258.380.
“Our last meet, we weren’t that satisfied,” senior base Zakia Houston said. “At practice, we were focusing on the little things that we’ve been talking about since the beginning of the season. We wanted to make sure that we fixed the little things, executed to the best of our ability and had fun, and I think we did that today.”
The little things that Oregon emphasized correcting throughout the week showed early in the meet. The Ducks got off to a dominant start, winning the first 11 heats of the meet before Hawaii Pacific finally posted a better score than Oregon in the second heat of the toss event.
“We’re on our way,” Mulkey said. “We still have some improvements we can make. I’m impressed with the progress they made.”
Even with the team’s impressive start, Oregon knew that they couldn’t get complacent in order to secure their 26th straight victory.
“The biggest thing is our coach always tells us that we need to have our guards up the whole time,” Houston said. “If we’re comfortable, that’s when things can go bad.”
Though the team didn’t necessarily need a momentum booster, junior Nicole Erlichman provided some fireworks of her own in the individual six element pass. Erlichman flipped and bounced her way across the mat in perfect fashion to earn a perfect score, the first time this season and the third of her career.
“We had gymnastics judges out here, so knowing that what I did on the floor was good enough in gymnastics judges’ eyes was really cool,” Erlichman said. “I’ve been struggling a little bit on this pass the last couple of weeks. So, finally getting a 10 feels really good and the team was right behind me, so that felt great.”
Erlichman’s perfect score was a fitting example of how the team’s mental preparation throughout the week parlayed into success on the mat.
“This week at practice we kind of took it as a mental preparation,” Erlichman said. “We didn’t want to come in thinking that this was going to be an easy win. We wanted to come in thinking that we had to execute our skills and just take it one heat at a time.”
With a 26 win streak in hand, Oregon will now start a rigorous road trip that includes four meets in two weeks across three different states. With a daunting road trip of this caliber before hand, the Ducks plan on using their latest win as motivation.
“For this meet, we wanted to make sure the seniors were honored,” Houston said. “Now that senior night is over, we’re going to focus on the next. We take everything like one thing at a time — one meet at a time.”
Follow Joseph Hoyt on Twitter @jhoyt42