HONOLULU – No. 5 Hawai'i Pacific University opened the Acrobatics & Tumbling season with a generally strong performance, but faltering in a few heats spelled the difference as No. 2 Azusa Pacific defeated HPU 281.870-to-272.800 on Friday night at The Shark Tank.
 
The Sharks (0-1) posted a perfect 10.00 in one of the heats of the first event, but the Cougars (1-0) retaliated with two perfects tens in events two and three.
 
HPU actually won three of the four heats of the Compulsory event. The opening Acro heat was the downfall of the event, but the Sharks bounced back with a 10.0 out of 10.0 in the Pyramid heat. It was followed up with a near perfect 9.95 out of 10.0 in the Toss heat. After the Acro heat, the Cougars were ahead 37.95 - 36.65 and never trailed again.

APU showcased their dominance in the Acro event posting a perfect 10.0 in the 5-Element heat and a 9.95 in the 7-Element heat. HPU held close with a 9.70 and 9.65 in those same heats.
 
Coming to the Pyramid Event, the difference in points was just 0.10, and that is with the Cougars putting up their second perfect ten. HPU held close tying at 9.90 in the Open heat.
 
At halftime, the Sharks trailed 94.10-96.70.
 
It was a struggle for the Sharks to keep pace as they had lower starting difficulty values in almost all of the heats for the rest of the meet. However, HPU saw less in deductions in the Tumbling Event seeing only 1.30 points off from their 57.20 starting values.  Sophomore Isabella Delacruz of Wantagh, N.Y. and Sophomore Alyra Andes of Biggs, Calif./Gridley scored a near perfect 9.30 out of 9.55 in their Duo Pass and Andes continued with an impressive 9.55 out of 9.55 in her Open pass to end the event.
 
In the Team Event, HPU scored a 95.20 out of their total 104.35 points and APU posted a 99.97 out of 107.02 to end the meet.
 
In comparing all the events, the Sharks received 17.75 points in deductions throughout the meet compared to the Cougar's 13.55.

The Sharks will head out on the road to face off against the Cougars again as well as Gannon on Tuesday, March 1 at the Felix Event Center. The meet is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. HST (6 p.m. PST).