Oregon State Tumbles Past No. 17 Arizona State

In all OSU gymnasts set or tied six career-highs.

Mandi Rodriguez scored career-highs on vault, beam and floor in OSU's win over No. 17 Arizona State Friday night. Photo: OSU Athletics

CORVALLIS - Tasha Smith excited the crowd, Jami Lanz turned in a typical ‘Jami Lanz performance’ and for the third week ina row Mandi Rodriguez tallied at least three career-best scores.

Meanwhile, the 16th-ranked Beavers put together a season-best performance outscoring No. 17 Arizona State 195.825-193.300.

“I still think that we need to translate what we do in practice to the competition especially on vault,” said head coach Tanya Chaplin. “We made some big improvements from last week, but across the board there is still room to get better.”

Smith, a second team All-American on balance beam in 2006, performed at Gill Coliseum for the first time in 2007 resuming her status as a crowd favorite with new and playful beam and floor routines that featured music from Michael Jackson and a “moonwalk” on each event.

Both routines brought the crowd to its feet and though the fans were disappointed by a score of 9.725 on beam, they were quite pleased with the 9.90 on floor.

Lanz, whose named has become synonymous with consistency, finished second in the all-around posting identical 9.825 scores on vault, bars and beam before taking her performance to a new level on the floor.

Lanz danced and tumbled her way to a season-best score of 9.90 to tie Smith for the individual title on the event.

She finished with a season-high 39.375 in the all-around.

Rodriguez, a freshman who anchored two lineups for the Beavers, continued to show the desire to be an outstanding collegiate gymnast that Chaplin referred to when Rodriguez signed with OSU’s program over a year ago.

Rodriguez scored the first 9.90 of her career with that performance coming early on with the vault.

She added a career-best 9.85 leading off on beam and a 9.875 on floor.

Had she not fallen during the dismount of an otherwise beautiful bars set, she could have been in the running in the all-around.

The Beavers’ night started off well enough, but just continued to get better as the evening progressed culminating in a season-high on the floor exercise.

Clearly OSU received a boost to the lineup with the return of Smith, the 2006 Pac-10 Floor Champion.

Junior Claire Pierce set the tone for the floor team with a solid 9.80 routine.

Then came OSU’s freshmen with Laura-Ann Chong, scoring 9.70 despite an out-of-bounds penalty, and Rodriguez (9.875) each tallying career-high scores.

In all OSU gymnasts set or tied six career-highs.

In addition to Rodriguez and Chong, Keegan Fitzgerald matched her career-best of 9.80 on bars to place third on the event and Brooke Barclay tied her career-best of 9.775 on vault.

The Beavers are on the road next week for a quad meet at No. 5 Stanford.

The meet will also feature No. 11 Iowa State and San Jose State.

Competition begins at 7:00 PM and is the Cardinal’s pink meet.

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