Costa Captures Ivy Title on Bars, Bears Finish Third at Ivy Classic

Sunday, February 27

New Haven, Conn.

1:00 pm

Brown University

Ivy Classic

Photo by: Stew Milne

Costa Captures Ivy Title on Bars, Bears Finish Third at Ivy Classic

2/27/2022 6:53:00 PM | Women's Gymnastics

Complete Results

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Four All-Ivy performances and a near school-record showing on vault helped lift the Brown gymnastics team to a third place showing at the Ivy Classic on Sunday afternoon. Brown's final team score of 192.250 was their third-highest of the season.

Senior Mei Li Costa was co-champion on bars, defending her Ivy title from the 2020 meet. She earned First Team All-Ivy accolades by finishing first on bars and second on vault, giving her seven All-Ivy honors in her career. Her bars title is also her fourth league championship, previously having won on vault in 2019, and vault and bars in 2020.

Brown also earned a pair of All-Ivy Second Team honors courtesy of Julia Bedell who finished fourth on vault, and Taylor Schulze who tied for fifth on bars.

Brown head coach Sara Carver-Milne picked up her 200th win as Brown head coach during the meet.

All-Ivy Performances
First Team (1-3)
Mei Li Costa (Vault)
Mei Li Costa (Bars)

Second Team (4-6)
Julia Bedell (Vault)
Taylor Schulze (Bars)

"It's a high-pressure competition, and we haven't had that in two years, so it was an exciting environment," Carver-Milne said. "Our team dominated the first half. We had some incredible performances and that's all we could have hoped for, especially in a big meet of that caliber."

The Bears started the meet on vault and came close to matching their program record (48.750), posting a score of 48.675 on the event.

Costa led the Bears on vault with a score of 9.800, taking second place overall. Bedell followed by tying for fourth place at 9.750 to earn Second Team All-Ivy honors, and Alyssa Gardner and Angela Xing tied for seventh overall by tying their season-highs at 9.725. Ella Poley set a new career-high with her performance of 9.675.

The Bears led the meet after the first rotation, and sat in second place just one-tenth of a point behind Yale after the second rotation.

"It was extremely exciting and I am so proud of how united the team was today," Carver-Milne said. "It shows a lot about their drive and their future."

Brown had strong performances across the lineup on bars, led by Costa who earned a share of the individual title on bars by posting a score of 9.900, tying with Penn's Kristen Kuhn for first place. Four other Bears had strong performances that set new career-highs, including Schulze at 9.825, tying her for fifth place and earning her Second Team All-Ivy honors. Poley also posted a career-high at 9.800, as did Richter at 9.775 and Abby Contello at 9.675.

Schulze led Brown on beam by posting a score of 9.675. Xing was the next Bear with a score of 9.575. Brown finished the meet up on floor, with Lauren Lazaro tying her season-high at 9.700. Xing followed with her score of 9.575, and McKenna Weiner posted a mark of 9.550.

"Beam was a little bumpy for us, but we still got some new people in the lineup, which was exciting and we finished strong on floor," Carver-Milne said. "It was a successful day and were thrilled to have had so many parents and alums in the stands, and admins on the floor supporting us all the way through."

Brown will turn its attention to a pair of meets this coming week, starting with a quad meet at Rutgers on Friday against the host Scarlet Knights, NC State and Southern Connecticut State. The Bears will then host Bridgeport for a dual meet on Sunday, March 6 at 4 p.m.

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