UK Gymnastics defeats No. 10 Missouri behind Raena Worley’s historic night

Kentucky Gymnastics claimed its second victory of the season against the No. 10 ranked Missouri Tigers on Saturday. Junior Raena Worley was the star of the evening, scoring the highest individual all-around performance at UK since 1996.

The GymKats kicked off its home schedule at Memorial Coliseum in what was the team’s third meet of the season. This was the first time the ‘Cats had been back in Lexington since the exciting season-opener against Ball State during Excite Night at Rupp Arena.

On Saturday, Kentucky led consistently throughout the entire matchup, defeating the Tigers in every event. UK scored a season-high on vault, beam, floor, and bars events, rounding out the evening with a score of 197.450.

This marks the Wildcats’ first team to score above 197 this season, while Missouri retained a final score of 196.875. The GymKats posted a score of 9.8 or high in 18 out of 20 events against the Tigers. With a vault score of 49.400 total, the GymKats tied the third all-time single meet record for vault.

“We felt going into the meet that we were more of a complete team than we were the first two meets of the season” UK head coach Tim Garrison said following the match. “We had to make some lineup adjustments, but the athletes that stepped in performed well on short notice and with very little drop off in score. It was valuable experience for moving forward. Our mainstays in lineups continued their successful ways again and competed at a very high level. Start to finish, it was a strong performance for this team.”

🎥 Highlights of tonight's win! 🎥#WeAreUK x #Team48 pic.twitter.com/6894NSBl4i

— Kentucky Gymnastics (@UKGymnastics) January 30, 2022

Two-time reigning SEC Gymnast of the Week Raena Worley had a historic meet, scoring the highest All-Around score at Kentucky since 1996. The junior’s all-around score of 39.750 was enough to clinch her third all-around title of the season.

On the floor exercise, Worley had her best score of the evening, with one judge scoring her at a 10.000 and the other scoring her at a 9.950 from the other, resulting in a score of 9.775 — the highest of any gymnast during Saturday’s meet.

“Raena Worley had another amazing performance and is leading her team in the best way imaginable – by example.” Garrison added.

It's a 10 in our book 😜 pic.twitter.com/WK6K8vOaSE

— Kentucky Gymnastics (@UKGymnastics) January 29, 2022

Worley has had a remarkable start to the season, scoring above a 9.900 in 11 out of 12 events she’s competed in so far. This continues Worley’s streak of all-around wins, as she’s off to one of the best starts in Kentucky Gymnastics history.

Kentucky will next face Georgia in a quad that includes Georgia, Illinois, and Central Michigan. This meet will serve as a replacement for the original Excite Night matchup of UK/Georgia after a cancelation earlier this year.

UK and Georgia will kick off at 7 p.m. at Memorial Coliseum on February 4th.