West Virginia Delivers Dynamic Floor Rotation

Despite falling to conference rivals Iowa State and Denver, the West Virginia gymnastics team set a season high team score, as well as season high scores on bars, beam and floor. Floor in particular was impressive, with no routines scoring below a 9.800.

“I feel like our floor is really exciting,” head coach Jason Butts said. “We have Kaitlyn [Millick] our assistant coach back on board this year. She’s done some great floor routines, and they’re just really energetic.”

The energetic floor routines drew the team as well as the home crowd in, which created a dynamic atmosphere in the arena. Butts noted that because the team loves the routines and gets into them, the crowd sees that and gets into them as well.

“It’s just a lot of fun to watch them,” Butts said. “The tumbling is there, the dance is there, the presentation [is there]. It’s really exciting, and it’s our best event right now. We have routines that aren’t even performing out on the floor, so we have a lot of depth.”

The first five routines were impressive, with season highs from Erica Fontaine, Abby Kaufman and Rachel Hornung, as well as great performances from McKenna Linnen and Jaquie Tun. All of these built up to the anchor routine from senior Kirah Koshinski, who delivered a dynamic performance, highlighted by a stuck double layout to open and a stuck double pike to close. Her efforts earned her a 9.925.

“I absolutely love my floor routine. It’s always so much fun,” Koshinski said. “I love going out there, and I love getting the crowd involved. I just love how the whole crowd loves it too, and I love that I can do that for them.”

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Article by Mary Emma Burton

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