Highest score in the Danna Durante era steers UNC gymnastics to quad meet win

Just keep building.

Tenth by tenth. Event by event.

It's a mindset that the UNC gymnastics team carries into every meet. And it continued in Friday's quad meet.  

“The feeling of just building was there,” senior Julia Knower said. “From the first routine to the last routine, I could see it, I could feel it. But also I feel like a lot of the girls just trusted the process. Just trusting that the person in front of you is going to set you up for success no matter what.”

Even after surpassing the 196-point threshold every time the Tar Heels have stepped into Carmichael Arena this season — they keep on improving.

Following a road season-high of 196.2 against No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 23 North Carolina notched a new overall season-high of 196.675 to secure the UNC Quad Meet title over Temple, Penn and Yale on Friday night in Carmichael Arena. The highest score of head coach Danna Durante’s four-year tenure helped the Tar Heels to the win. Three scores above 49.0 secured wins in all but one event for North Carolina, including an event season-high 49.4 on bars and second-highest 49.25 on beam.

“I was really excited that at the end, we could look up and see that it was a season high score and that they could taste a little bit of that reward when you're working so hard,” Durante said. “Sometimes you just need to be able to taste that. You need to be able to see it and go, ‘Oh, okay, it's worth it.'”

Meet after meet, both individual and team scores continue to climb. But just before these accomplishments, UNC fell behind by 0.075 to Temple after the first rotation.

The team’s response? A season-high on the next event: bars.

Knower kicked off uneven bars, sticking her signature full-twisting double back dismount. The eventual all-around event champion scored a season-high tying 9.875.

UNC’s beam specialist, senior Lali Dekanoidze, anchored the rotation by notching a 9.95, claiming her 22nd career bars title. It's her third-straight meet scoring 9.9 or higher.

“Every single person on this team shares that mindset: 'I'm going to go out there and do my best.' But of course there's ways to get better and that's not going to discourage us," Knower said. "That's just going to get us more fired up."

With a 0.35 point lead after the second rotation, the Tar Heels never looked back. Two meets after recording its season-lowest score on beam at N.C. State, a 48.025, UNC rebounded for a 49.25 — without a single gymnast scoring under a 9.8.

Durante told her team to trust the discipline and the work that had been done in practice. The execution would follow.

“We really focus on the little things in practice,” first-year JoJo Valahovic said. “If your one toe isn't pointed and where you can find half a tenth in your routine, all of those little things add up. That's how we got this score now.”

After deep breaths and a pep talk from assistant coach Sami Durante-Money, UNC’s beam rotation got the job done in similar scoring fashion to bars. Knower achieved a new season-high of 9.85, followed by junior Gwen Fink securing a share of the beam event title with a 9.9, tying her career-high for the third time behind executing a complex double layout-stepout series and side gainer full dismount.

This focus on simple execution paid off. North Carolina’s lead blossomed to 1.125 heading into the final rotation, where the Tar Heels sealed the match. 

“Our job doesn't change,” Durante said. “It doesn't matter who we're competing against — whether they're ranked ahead of us or behind us. The job is the job and it doesn't change.”

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