Almost every high school athlete’s dream is to play at the collegiate level. This dream for pretty much every athlete between 2020-2022 was hindered, but still eventually happened.

Teams like soccer, and field hockey had to wait an extra season.

Rugby had to wait a year.

Acrobatics and Tumbling, on the other hand, had to wait well over 700 days for their opportunity on the mats.

Saturday’s thrilling meet against East Stroudsburg (ESU) and Gannon saw the Bobcats lose by a score of 266.955 to 262.235.

Quinnipiac and Gannon pulled ahead of ESU very early on and were neck and neck for almost the whole meet.

While Gannon took the Compulsory and acrobatics portions of the day, Quinnipiac led the way in the tumbling department.

Heading into the final sets of the afternoon, the Bobcats found themselves just about three points back of the Golden Knights and knew they would need a big effort in the team event to win.

In the end, the Bobcats lost by more than four points. However, it wasn’t their performance that impressed head coach Mary Ann Powers the most, but how they were able to shake off the rust and nerves so quickly.

“It’s been a long time. You can’t have that many practices without actually experiencing it out on the floor,” Powers said. “As coaches, I’ve had first years and sophomores who have never competed. It was almost like a brand-new team out here and I’m just really proud of them.”

As soon as Powers saw how her team was performing, she realized that they would have an opportunity to really go after the win.

With every round came more and more confidence for the Bobcats, and at that point it was Powers’ job to just keep her team focused and concentrated on the task at hand.

“I had to bring them in and say don’t give this away.  We’ve got six tumbling heats and a team routine, we’re talking about a good 160 points still to capture,” Powers said.

The crowd felt this energy as well and were feeding off the Bobcat’s performance. Athletes from almost every single sport were in attendance to watch a team that had been at almost every single one of their events over the past year.

Powers was able to use the support of her girl’s peers and audience as fuel to keep pushing and not let their foot off the gas.

“I want you to make them (the fans) love you. I want this fanbase to be back and see you,” Powers said to the team.

While the Bobcats are on the road for their next two meets, they will return to a hopefully packed People’s United Center when they welcome in Baylor University on Mar. 19 at 1pm.