Nebraska women's gymnastics coach Heather Brink looked worried Thursday before the No. 10 Huskers rallied for a 195.150-194.000 victory over Penn State.
The second-year head coach admitted she was scared as she looked up at the scoreboard after the No. 10 Huskers (2-1) had a rough performance on the beam and trailed Penn State (1-4) 146.100-144.725 heading into the final rotation.
“Who wants to be down, and what, we were down by a point, I think, at one point tonight,” Brink said. “You're never quite sure. You can talk and can do all these things, but I know what this team is capable of. It was not our complete performance tonight, but overall I'm proud of how they showed up on the last event.”
Nebraska, which has now defeated Penn State 19 consecutive times, scored 47.775 on the beam while the Nittany Lions put together a 48.775 on the floor and took their only lead after the third rotation.
People are also reading…
Then Makayla Curtis put the Huskers right back into it with her opening routine on the floor exercise and the Huskers (No. 7 on the floor exercise) put together an overall 49.400.
“We talked about that particular moment,” Brink said. “Not before this meet, but before the season in general. There is going to come a time where we are down by whatever and we have to choose our response to that situation."
Curtis landed a 9.850. Addy De Jesus followed with an 9.825, and then the Huskers were clicking and the crowd of 1,030 turned electric.
Taylor Houchin overcame a score of 8.950 on the beam, her lowest score of the night, with her second 9.900. Houchin also scored a 9.900 in Nebraska's opening vault event.
“Falling is really hard for me, and honestly I probably should have snapped my attitude back together quicker than I did,” Houchin said. “… I kind of held onto my moping and sadness a little too long. It's just hard to get my mind out of that situation and I just gave it all I had on floor, because I knew the best way for me to react out of that situation was to score high for my team.”
Sierra Hassel added a 9.857, and Kylie Piringer sealed the victory with the second 9.900 in the floor exercise. Anika Dujakovich added a 9.875 after Curtis' and De Jesus' routines.
“It was huge,” De Jesus said, who won the all-around event with a 39.075. “We just have to let go of things and move on. We can't hold onto a couple bad mistakes on beam. We knew we had to have a strong floor performance to get back up on the score. That's exactly what we did and we left beam in the past and focused on our performance for floor.”
De Jesus joined Houchin with a 9.900 score on the vault, and was shocked when her name was called for the all-around event winner.
“It's really surreal and I couldn't believe it,” De Jesus said. “When I was sitting down with the girls and they called my name I honestly couldn't believe it. It's nice to have seniors that you can look up to and make you work hard and push you to be the best that you can. I honestly wouldn't be here or have performed this well if it wasn't for them.”
While Nebraska struggled on the beam, so did Penn State. The Nittany Lions scored a 47.425 on their final event. Penn State's Tess McCracken was able to win the individual award with a 9.825, but Ava Verdeflor and Bella Romagnano scored 8.450 and 8.875, respectively.
Nebraska returns to action Jan. 26 in East Lansing, Michigan, to face Michigan State at 1 p.m.