Iowa State to Open 2016 Season at No. 20 Minnesota

AMES, Iowa - The Iowa State gymnastics team begins the season Saturday night at 6:30 p.m., when ISU takes on No. 20 Minnesota at the Sports Pavilion. Iowa State is opening the season at Minnesota for the second-straight year, and this is the start of a three-weekend road swing for the Cyclones.

Tickets to the meet can be bought online now through the Minnesota Athletics Department (click here), or on the day of the meet at the Sports Pavilion. Due to the amount of events happening on the Minnesota campus this Saturday, and throughout the weekend, the Minnesota Athletics Department has put together an event parking guide that can be found here.

Saturday's meet will be shown live on BTN Plus, a subscription-based service. For more information about BTN Plus, click here. Live scoring for the meet will be located here. Updates on the meet will also be provided on the Iowa State Gymnastics Twitter account, @CycloneGYM.

Cyclone Headlines

The Iowa State gymnastics team kicks off the 2016 season Saturday with a trip to No. 20 Minnesota. The Cyclones and Golden Gophers will begin the campaign at the Sports Pavilion at 6:30 p.m.
The Cyclones will feature a lot of familiar names in the lineup, as ISU returns 12 letterwinners from last season's squad. However, Iowa State does have to replace regular season and postseason second team All-American Caitlin Brown.
The 2016 Cyclones does feature the returning Big 12 champion in the All-Around in sophomore Haylee Young. This marks just the second time in ISU history that the Cyclones have had a returning conference champion in the all-around (Shelly Kringen, 2001 Big 12 A-A champ).
Young, a Des Moines native, competed in the All-Around for Iowa State in all of the Cyclones' meets last season. She posted a career-best score of 39.325 two times.
The Cyclones return four gymnasts who have recorded apparatus scores of 9.900 or higher in their respecitve careers. Young has gone 9.900 on multiple events (beam and floor), while the Cyclones also have seniors Alex Marasco (9.900, vault) and Sammie Pearsall (9.950, beam) and sophomore Hilary Green (9.900, bars).
Green, a sophomore from Madison, Alabama, was one of Iowa State's hottest gymnasts at the end of the 2015 season. She competed on bars and floor in each meet for ISU last season, before adding the balance beam to her collection at the end of last season. She finished tied for third on the uneven bars at the NCAA Regional in April.
Iowa State features five freshmen in 2016, with the Cyclone coaching staff expecting most of them to be in the lineup during the season. A couple of newcomers who could find their way into the lineup include Kelly Martin and Meaghan Sievers.
Martin, from North Haven, Connecticut, was a four-time qualifier to Junior Olympic Nationals in the all-around as a Level 10 gymnast. Sievers, a Gary, South Dakota native, was a two-time qualifier for the Allaround at the Junior Olympic Nationals.
The Iowa State gymnastics program has qualified for the NCAA Regional Gymnastics Championships for 20-straight seasons.
ISU head coach Jay Ronayne is beginning his 10th season at the helm of the Cyclones' program. In his time as the Cyclone boss, Ronayne has guided four All-Americans and eight Big 12 individual champions.
The Cyclones start the season at No. 28 in the Road to Nationals Preseason Poll.

Iowa State to Open 2016 Season at No. 20 Minnesota

Players Mentioned

Caitlin Brown

Hilary Green

Alex Marasco

Kelly Martin

Sammie Pearsall

Meaghan Sievers

Haylee Young

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Iowa State University Athletics

Iowa State to Open 2016 Season at No. 20 Minnesota

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Players Mentioned

Caitlin Brown

Hilary Green

Alex Marasco

Kelly Martin

Sammie Pearsall

Meaghan Sievers

Haylee Young

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