Gymnasts Open Season at No. 18 Arizona

Jan. 5, 2016

Michigan State at No. 18 Arizona
Date	Friday, Jan. 8, 2016
Location	Tuscon, Ariz.; McKale Center
Live Results	Live Scoring
Pre-Meet Notes	Michigan State \| Arizona
Social Media	@MSUgymnastics \| Facebook

MEET NOTES

• Michigan State will travel to Tuscon, Ariz. on Friday, Jan. 8 to compete against No. 18 Arizona in the first meet of the season. The Spartans appear at No. 26 in the pre-season coaches survey.

• The last time the two schools met in the regular season was in East Lansing on March 6, 2015 in a quad meet which also featured Bowling Green and Eastern Michigan. MSU placed fourth with a 194.350 and Arizona placed first with a score of 195.450.

• Eight Big Ten teams open their season this weekend, as Illinois, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State and Rutgers all compete on the road and Minnesota and Penn State host home meets. Michigan and Iowa opened last weekend at the Cancun Classic.

TEAM NOTES

• MSU was selected eighth in the Big Ten preseason poll, with Lisa Burt and Elena Lagoski named to the 20-member "Gymnasts to Watch" list in the Conference. Defending champion MIchigan is the B1G favorite in 2016.

• The Spartans finished last season with a 12-10 overall record and went 4-5 in Big Ten competition. MSU ranked seventh in the Big Ten and No. 28 in the nation in 2015, which was 11 places higher than they were ranked at the end of the 2014 season. MSU's RQS of 195.117 was it's best since 2010 (195.350).

• The Spartans concluded the 2015 season in the NCAA Iowa State Regional, placing fourth as a No. 5 seed with a 195.375. It marked MSU's first time traveling to NCAA Regionals as a team since the 2012 season when the Spartans competed in Auburn, Alabama and scored a 194.050.

• Floor proved to be the most consistent event for the Spartans in which, on which they tallied a 49.235 RQS and ranked 16th in the nation (and third in the Big Ten) as a team.

• Lisa Burt and Elena Lagoski were both named First Team All-Big Ten in 2015. It was the first All-Big Ten honors for both athletes, following in the footsteps of Alina Cartwright, who was an All-Big Ten pick in the 2014 season. It marked the first time MSU had two gymnasts named to the First Team since Rhiannon Banda-Scott and now-assistant coach Nicole Curler in 2007-08.

• Burt led the Spartans in all-around competition last season, finishing 23rd in the nation with a 39.345 RQS. Burt earned five all-around crowns on the season, alongside nine additional event wins. Burt ranked in the top 25 nationally all around throughout the 2015 season.

• Lagoski earned a spot in the Spartan record book when she set a career best 9.950, the second-highest score in school history, on floor at Iowa (Jan. 18, 2015). She went on to match that mark two other times during the season (Feb. 15 and Feb. 27). A native of Kingston, PA, Lagoski holds eight floor crowns and placed among the top three in 10 regular season competitions a year ago.

• MSU returns five of it's six Academic All-Big Ten honores from 2015: Lisa Burt, Nicola Deans, Brittany Holmes, Ashley Noll, and Holly Ryan. In addition, Deans and Ryan were named National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches/Women (NACGC/W) Scholar All-Americans for maintaining a GPA of 3.5 or higher during the 2014-15 academic year. Head coach Kathie Klages now has 118 student-athletes on the NACGC/W Scholastic All-American list over her 25 years at MSU, as well as 142 Academic All-Big Ten selections.

•The Spartans welcome seven newcomers to the roster in 2016: five freshmen, one transfer student, and one graduate student. Sophomore Lindsey Lemke (Holt, Mich.) has recently been added to the Michigan State roster. Lemke is eligible to compete immediately, and joins the Spartans after competing at the University of North Carolina in the 2015 season. Haley Sedgewick (Flint, Mich.) is a graduate student that has also been added to the roster. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh and is currently pursuing her Masters in Communications and Media Technology at MSU.

• Former Spartan gymnasts Alina Cartwright, Kate Filosi, and Ashley Stevenson will all serve as undergraduate student coaches this season.

• Klages announced that Ally Hoyer (Grayslake, Ill.) has signed her National Letter of Intent and will enroll at Michigan State in the fall of 2016. Hoyer, A fifth-year level 10 who trains at Ultimate Gymnastics in Gurnee, Ill., was the beam champion at the 2015 Region 5 Level 10 Championships, where she also finished second on floor. She also tied for second place on floor at the 2014 Junior Olympic Nationals, and finished second on floor, third on beam and fourth on vault and all-around at the 2014 Region 5 Level 10 Regionals.

• Klages is in her 26th season as head coach of the Spartan gymnastics program, and is the longest-tenured head coach in the Spartan athletic department. Assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Mike Rowe is in his second year with the program after coaching for nine years at the University of Pittsburgh, while assistant coach Nicole Curler is also in her third year with the program after a standout career as a Spartan gymnast.

• MSU hosts its home opener next Friday, Jan. 15 against Iowa. This meet is partnered with the MSU wrestling team and is billed as as the `Tumbles and Takedowns' meet, as both teams will compete side-by-side against Big Ten competition. Wrestling tangles with Big Ten rival Purdue, also in a 7 pm start at Jenison Field House.