This intriguing quad breaks down into two fairly close duals. Penn State and N.C. State are both score in the high 196s on a good day and have ceilings in the 197s on a great day. The Wolfpack being at home increases its chances of winning the meet, but increases the difficulty of improving its NQS: The home drop score for N.C. State is 196.725. (Note that a great road meet at Temple on Thursday helped out here.) Penn State, ranked No. 16 on beam nationally, is a fun and increasingly consistent team that should be able to turn in a competitive road score here.
For Penn, a team whose personnel choices and injury statuses always confuse me, I’ll be looking out for Skye Kerico. On Thursday, she had an odd fall on a bars pirouette and scratched both the rest of that routine and also her beam. I’m also missing Samantha Wu, who got a career high beam score in the anchor position at Ivy Classic and hasn’t been in the lineup since. She’s Penn’s most consistent beamer, so her absence is concerning. For Texas Woman’s, conventionally higher-scoring at home, you won’t want to miss a killer floor rotation. The Pioneers have also been improving on bars in recent weeks.
Rotation 1: NC State VT, Penn UB, Penn State BB, Texas Woman’s FX
Hall (NCSU): Nice…
