The Falcons gymnastics season comes to an end after earning a handful of medals and celebrating one of their own who won the all-around competition at the USA Gymnastics Women’s Collegiate Championships.
Eight Falcons traveled to Bridgeport, Connecticut in order to compete in the USAGYM semi-finals.
One of which, Darian Burns, qualified in three different events and grabbed the No. 1 all-around title. Burns was able to fight her way into the finals for the vault, uneven bars and floor exercise performances.
The remainder of the Falcons gave performances in each category, but unfortunately only Burns was able to move on to the finals.
“Darian did a great job this past weekend in a highly competitive all-around field of gymnasts,” Falcons head coach Laurel Tindall said.
Burns was able to put together a four-event total of 39.225 points last Friday to win the all-around competition.
She earned the all-around score by posting 9.825 on the vault, tying her career best, then scoring the exact same score on the uneven bars and concluding with a 9.850 on the floor exercise and 9.725 on the balance beam to cap it all off.
Burns tied for first on the vault, earned a fifth place spot on the uneven bars, tied for 13th on the balance beam and tied for fourth on the floor exercise.
“She definitely led the field and also did well in the individual event finals finishing as the runner up in two events,” said Tindall. “It was a great way to cap her junior season.”
Burns took her record setting performance from the semi-finals into the three events that she qualified for in the USAGYM Championship Finals.
She placed second for the vault performance with a 9.7750, had a four-way tie for second on her floor exercise with 9.875 and had a three-way tie for sixth in her final performance on Uneven Bars.
Because of her high placements, Burns earned two more silver medals. With just one more season for Burns to compete, Burns has compiled 10 All-American certificates and two national titles.
Before the finals last weekend, Tindall spoke on the difficulty the Falcon competitors could feel without the support of all their teammates attending the USAGYM finals.
“They are training well for the championships next week and I hope they all have some good performances,” she said. “It is really difficult to rotate with another team and not have the team support there but they are motivated to do well.”
As for Tindall, she has attended her last meet as the Falcon’s gymnastics head coach.
“It was very tough to have that be my last meet as the head coach of a program that I have invested my whole life in, but great that we were able to add more All-Americans and a national championship to the storied history of the program,” she said.
