Teams: UC Davis at Seattle Pacific
Where: Brougham Pavilion — Seattle, Wash.
When: Friday at 7 p.m.
Who to watch: Junior Leah Houseman has become a dominant force on balance beam in her first season with UC Davis after transferring from Cal State Fullerton.
The Arcadia, Calif. native has scored back-to-back career highs on the event in the Aggies’ last two meets. The scores of 9.825 and 9.850 are UC Davis’ top marks for the event this season.
Did you know? The last time that UC Davis competed against Seattle Pacific the Aggies outscored the Falcons on every event.
The strong performance came in a home-triangular against Seattle Pacific and California in which UC Davis outscored the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rival 191.600 to 189.275.
Preview: The Aggies return to conference action this Friday against rival Seattle Pacific.
Since Head Coach John Lavallee took the coaching position five years ago, UC Davis has won each annual road trip to Brougham Pavilion. The Aggies hope to continue that streak this weekend with a sixth consecutive away-win against the Falcons.
The squad will look to clean up the falls that narrowly kept them from a win against Air Force last Saturday. The Aggies held the lead through three rotations, but saw first place slip from their grasp after a disappointing performance on beam that involved three falls early on in the line-up.
“We need to have a meet without counting a fall. Period,” Lavallee said. “We need to go [at least] 5-for-6 on every event. We still haven’t done that.”
But as UC Davis proved last week against Air Force, the squad is not short on talent. The Aggies captured four out of five individual titles and remained competitive throughout the course of meet despite losing sophomore Anna Shumaker to an injury during warm-ups.
If the team can bring the same level of performance to the meet that they see in practice each week, the Aggie will feel good about their chances in Seattle.
— Kaitlyn Zufall
