It is a vault that requires a tremendous amount of skill and precision.

Junior Hilary Mauro worked to earn back her spot in the Gym Dogs’ lineup after struggling with her landings on vault. Photo by JACKIE REEDY

The Yurchenko one and a half, in which a gymnast hits the horse in a backwards handstand and twists 540 degrees before landing on the mat, had been giving junior Gym Dog Hilary Mauro fits this season.

She had practiced it everyday and in the first few meets of the season performed a watered down version of the vault because she couldn’t consistently stick the landing.

“I do it everyday in the gym,” Mauro said. “What’s frustrating is that I’ll go and warm up and have some struggles with it.”

But that all changed Friday in Gainesville, Fla., when the gymnast short in stature — 4-foot-8 — but big in heart, exorcized her vault demons and stuck the landing, tying a season high score of 9.85.

“It gave me so much confidence,” Mauro said. “I was just so excited — I was just so excited that whole meet. Just landing that vault was momentum going into floor and [balance] beam.”

Mauro’s vault propelled her to season-high scores of 9.875 on the floor exercise and a 9.9 on the beam. When she finished her beam routine she told teammate Courtney McCool, “That was easy.”

“When she goes up there she is as consistent as consistent can be. Everything is awesome,” McCool said.

Mauro had been out of the vault lineup in the two meets prior to Friday because she couldn’t consistently land her vault and entrance had been increasingly difficult due to the performance of teammates senior Lauren Sessler and freshman Shayla Worley. But she kept working hard and forced herself back into the lineup.

“She has really tightened the screws since that competition [to get in the lineup] has been going on and you are starting to see some good positive results of that,” head coach Jay Clark said.

It was the disappointment of being held out of the lineup that got Mauro to work harder and harder, a commitment her teammates never fail to notice.

“We need her to be the star she is and she works harder than almost anybody in the gym,” senior Grace Taylor said Friday. “She works ridiculously hard and her scores are finally starting to show what she deserves.”

Mauro, who admitted that in previous meets she “had been timid here and there,” let loose in Gainesville and her teammates fed off of her energy of her routines and her cheering.

“It gave us so much confidence because you know the last few people are gonna blow it up,” junior Cassidy McComb said. “To have her hit in the middle of the lineup gave us so much momentum.”

Outside of being the “energizer bunny,” as Clark called her, Mauro also serves as the inhouse comedian, even if she isn’t always that funny.

“I’m always the jokester, or I try to be anyway,” she said with a laugh. “Sometimes I’ll say things and they aren’t so funny and people will say, ‘Oh wow, did you really just say that?’ I just try to keep people happy and upbeat all the time and just do my best,” Mauro said.