An exciting night of gymnastics at Carver-Hawkeye Arena

IOWA CITY - Carver-Hawkeye Arena is well-known for bringing in some of the best crowds in college sports.

Carver-Hawkeye is home to University of Iowa sports like gymnastics, wrestling, basketball and volleyball.

Last Friday, I attended the women's gymnastics meet against Ball State.

The crowd of 1,703 was very energetic as the Hawks had one of their best performances of the season.

It had been five years since I attended a meet, so I didn't know what to expect going in. It was the annual 'pink meet” for the Hawks in support of Breast Cancer awareness.

The stands were packed with fans dressed in pink.

The fans were enthusiastic as the Hawks picked up the best vault score of the year. But the highlight of the meet came on beam, when Nicole Chow put up a near-perfect routine, earning a score of 9.850. That score seemed very low compared to other scores across the country.

The atmosphere at Carver was electric as the Hawks moved to the floor. The crowd was clapping and cheering for every routine.

The highest score of the meet came when Lanie Snyder anchored the floor rotation with a gigantic 9.900. Her routine was packed with powerful tumbling mixed with beautiful dance that got the crowd excited.

The Hawkeyes won the meet, taking all four event titles. The event titles were won by Maria Ortiz on vault, Melissa Zurawski on bars, Chow on beam and Snyder in the floor exercise.

After the meet, kids could go out on the floor to do the 'Cha-Cha Slide” with the gymnasts before the awards ceremony. It was very energetic with about 200 kids taking advantage of the opportunity.

After the meet I was able to talk to Iowa Coach Larissa Libby and she was impressed with Iowa's performance. She felt that scores were tight, but liked how her gymnasts persevered through it.

The season is looking up for the Hawks. They have one more home meet on March 2, a Senior Night dual with Southeast Missouri State. Iowa also has a match at Iowa State on March 9. The Big Ten Championships are March 24 in Champaign, Ill.